§ Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when, pursuant to the answer of 16 June, Official Report, column 460, he hopes to complete his examination with representative bodies of the medical profession of the possibility of introducing a voluntary code of practice into this country on opting out kidney donations; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. WhitneyThe Department's chief medical officer wrote in March to the medical professions representative organisations seeking their views on the introduction of a voluntary code of practice under which doctors would agree, whenever a clinically suitable organ donor died, to ask relatives' permission for the organs to be removed for transplantation; his letters were not concerned with "opting-out". He has now received replies from four of the five organisations he wrote to, and is considering how the matter might best be taken forward. An announcement will be made as soon as possible.