In February 2023 the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) published the Organ Utilisation Group’s (OUG) report ‘Honouring the gift of donation: utilising organs for transplant’.
The report included 12 recommendations for improving organ utilisation. One of the recommendations focused specifically on reviewing cardiothoracic (CT) transplant services, to ensure these services are sustainable, resilient and able to provide the best possible outcomes for patients.
DHSC is working with NHS England (NHSE) and NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) to deliver on this recommendation throughout the course of 2024.
As part of this process, all CT transplant services will be reviewed by a panel of international experts in April 2024. We will need to provide the experts with information on our strengths and weaknesses and how we are addressing them. As a transplant team we are concentrating our efforts to collect the information required.
The experts – as well as DHSC, NHSE and NHSBT – want to hear from our patients their families and carers. This is to understand their experiences of the CT transplant service.
These views are critical to informing the delivery of this recommendation and future improvements to the CT transplant service.
An online survey has been developed to capture views, and responses are welcomed from people at all stages of the CT transplant care pathway.
Please take some time to fill it in. The results will help inform the experts on the strengths of your transplant team and on the areas that you would like to see improvements. The survey will be open until midnight on Sunday 14th April.
The survey link is below:
Heart and Lung Transplant Service - Patient and Carer Survey
Thank you for your support with this important piece of work.