Organ Donation

Professional Development Programme

NHSBT has launched a unique programme to support a UK-wide network of hospital organ donation champions.

The Professional Development Programme is designed for the growing number of Clinical Leads for Organ Donation and the Donation Committee Chairs who work with them.

Presently, there are 170 clinical leads throughout the UK to help promote organ donation to colleagues in intensive care units and emergency medicine departments to encourage them to see it as part of normal, everyday practice.

There will be a total of 194 Clinical Leads and 184 donation committees based in acute hospitals across the country.

Funded by NHSBT, the 12-month programme will involve face to face workshops, self-study and regional events aimed at building leadership and change management skills, and to advance clinical expertise and capability. The progression of how the programme will be rolled out can be viewed here.

A full schedule of the regional events can be found here.

Leadership within frontline NHS services was identified by the Organ Donation Taskforce as a major catalyst in making organ donation a usual rather than unusual event. The programme has been developed in collaboration with the medical colleges and is supported by UK Government Health Departments.

The initiative is supported by the Health Minister Ann Keen, who said: 'This programme is yet another important step in our journey to increase organ donation - by providing support and training for those involved in organ donation in the NHS, leadership in this vital field is improved.'

For full details of the vision and objectives of the programme, click here.

For further details, contact: Paul Murphy or Lesley Logan.