Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180
- 181)
THURSDAY 24 JANUARY 2008
Mr Roy J Thomas, Mr Raj Aggarwal, OBE, Ms Lesley
Bentley, Ms Elizabeth Gibb and Mr Philip Hollobone
Q180 Lord Lea of Crondall:
What do you mean, you are not a European?
Ms Gibb: Living on the continent of Europe.
I am a Scot so I am not European. What they felt was if you are
French or Spanish, it may not be easily carried across. That is
what they were trying to say to me. I have not explained it very
well.
Q181 Chairman: One of the
things we have heard is that people have views which are difficult
to carry through about who they do and do not want to give organs
to, and that is something ethical committees I know have strong
views on.
Mr Thomas: Can I answer Lord Lea, if I can.
There are two issues—you are absolutely right—the
card and if you die on continental Europe. There is some evidence
that in Spain, when people have died, they asked British tourists
whether they would give their organs, and the evidence there is
that they have had a far better success rate of convincing British
tourists or British people to actually give their organs. We know
there is a different refusal rate in the UK as opposed to Spain,
to answer the question on the European dimension. My own view
on the card, shared by my colleagues, although not all of our
trustees, I should add—there is one dissenting surgeon,
who I respect enormously—is that the more access, the more
cards we have, the more demonstration that people are prepared
to give, the better. I know I am coming from that side and I would
say that, wouldn't I, but that is important and it also demonstrates
that there is a need. Whether you have one register, which is
the third point you were bringing into it, is something else,
because I am then defeating my argument about locality and the
local side of things. We are in Europe, we should be looking over
the borders and we should be looking at best practice. Indeed,
that is why I think the evidence today is essential and what we
are bringing is benchmarking. One of our key things is that we
have a world-class renal service in Wales but you cannot have
a world-class renal service if you just stick to the UK. You have
to look outside, indeed, to the United States, for example, where
again they do things locally, not nationally, and it is a bit
bottom-up more than top-down.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. We have
run over time. I hope we have not detained you too long. That
is simply because we have found your evidence so useful and interesting
and I am sure the whole Committee will join me in thanking you
again for your very useful and helpful contribution.
Baroness Young of Hornsey: I am sorry to interrupt
you. A couple of questions I asked were not able to be addressed
due to time. Is it possible to have some written response to those?
Chairman: If we could, it would really be helpful.
I apologise. I thought they would run through and of course they
did not and we have not had a chance to come back. Unfortunately,
we never cover all the things we want to, so we may drop you a
note and ask a further question, because we do not expect you
to keep it in your heads, just to reassure you of that. Ms Gibb,
we were trying to get you to answer it and we had to move on far
too quickly. I apologise for that. Thank you very much for your
evidence. As you have heard this morning, we have heard some extraordinarily
complex issues. We now have the benefit of the Task Force document
but we are ploughing on, trying to look at the European dimension
on the basis that the Commission may well take another step forward
in this, and that will have implications for the UK—and
even Wales and Scotland! Thank you very much indeed.
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