A sad day as Wales fails to lead the Uk on presumed consent - Randerson

12.01.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 30th Jul 2008

A system of presumed consent would lead to a much higher availability of organs

Welsh Lib Dem Spokesperson for Health Jenny Randerson AM has expressed disappointment at the failure of the Assembly's Health Committee to back a move to a system of 'presumed consent' for organ donation. Jenny Randerson, together with Helen Mary Jones and Dr Dai Lloyd attempted to persuade the Committee to endorse a change of system following their long enquiry into the issue. The Conservatives and Labour together blocked an endorsement the majority of the committee voted against change.

Jenny Randerson said: "I am hugely disappointed. This report had the potential to recommend a system that would save countless lives. We had a golden opportunity to move the debate forward and encourage the powers to be devolved. At this stage, we could have opened up the biggest public, moral debate in decades and would have made progress on saving lives. Instead, the issue is now off the agenda for years to come. That is deeply disappointing.

"I am pleased about some of the recommendations in the report, but we failed to take the opportunity to lead the way on the big issue of presumed consent which I believe would have led the way for the whole of the UK to introduce a "soft" system of presumed consent which I believe would never lead to organs being taken against the wishes of the patient or their family."

Notes:

The Health Committee's report into Presumed Consent is released today.

Jenny Randerson, together with Plaid Cymru AMs Helen Mary Jones and Dr Dai Lloyd supported a minority report calling for Wales to seek legislative competence on Presumed Consent, the majority report, supported by the four Labour and two Conservative members of the committee recommended against such a change.

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