People who wish to donate a kidney to a stranger while they are alive will be able to do so for the first time from September, under rules announced yesterday.
Donors hoping to help a friend or relative will also be able to "pool" their kidneys if a direct transplant is impossible because of mismatched tissue or blood. A patient will be able to obtain a kidney from another donor either in a direct swap or through a chain.
The measures were announced by the Human Tissues Authority, the regulatory body charged with overseeing the removal, storage, use and disposal of human bodies, organs and tissues.
Last year in Britain 585 people donated their kidneys to relatives, nearly a third of the 1,905 kidney transplants. Though the process has been legal for more than 40 years, strangers had been unable to donate spare kidneys while alive because of a lack of regulations.
Last night the Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, the chairman of the all-party parliamentary kidney group, questioned why the scheme had not been introduced before. "Even if very few lives a year are saved or transformed it's worth it," he said.
Under the paired/pooled scheme, donors, who must remain anonymous, will be matched by the firm UK Transplant (UKT) on the basis of age, tissue match and blood group. Transplants will have to be tightly coordinated, ideally in the same hospital at the same time, but and certainly within 24 hours of each other.
Logistical difficulties are likely to prevent more than two or three couples being involved, although in Korea a swap has occurred involving seven separate couples. Pairing also occurs in the US and the Netherlands.
Chris Rudge of UK Transplant said yesterday there was a desperate shortage of donor organs in the country.
"The number of living kidney donors is running at record levels and, by offering the opportunity of paired/pooled and altruistic donation, the Human Tissue Act will offer an exciting new option for people who need a kidney transplant," he said. In the UK a total of 5,804 people, including 107 children, are currently waiting for a kidney
