Nurses helping police ask organ donation question

More than 7,900 people in the UK are on a transplant waiting list, according to the Humber Health Partnership

Specialist nurses are working with Humberside Police to spread awareness of organ donation after sudden deaths.

Helen Russell and Joanna Pancarowicz, who are based at Hull Royal Infirmary, are training officers to raise the issue of tissue and eye donation with families who have lost loved ones in unexpected circumstances.

Ms Russell said donation could help families find "something positive out of something so negative".

According to the Humber Health Partnership (HHP), 16 families from East Yorkshire consented to organ donations between April 2024 and February this year, after their relatives were declared brain dead or died from cardiac arrest.

The two nurses also look after organ donations at hospitals in Cottingham, Goole, Grimsby and Scunthorpe.

Ms Russell said: "No one likes to think of a loved one dying in violent or tragic circumstances, but unfortunately these terrible crimes and accidents affect families every day.

"We hope these training sessions will help police raise the issue sensitively with families.

"It may be that the victim wanted to donate in the event of their death and this is a way of us finding out how to uphold those wishes."

Across Yorkshire, 373 patients received a life-saving or life-changing transplant between 2023 and 2024, HHP said.

Nationally, more than 100,000 transplants have been carried out since the creation of the Organ Donor Register in 1994.

However, HHP said the UK-wide waiting list for a transplant was at its highest in a decade, at more than 7,900 people.

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