It’s not that hard!  Taking less time to fill out your details, than it does to boil an egg, what are you waiting for?  Everyone can join the NHS Organ Donor Register regardless of age, as long as they are:

• legally capable of making the decision, and
• live in the UK.

Donation is giving the gift of an organ or tissue to help someone who needs a transplant.  Transplants can save or greatly enhance the lives of other people who are really struggling to stay alive and well.  Currently, this relies on donors and their families agreeing to donate their organ or tissue.

If you are on the donation register and choose to or in the event of your passing you will still be able to live on and give the gift of life to others.

There are three different ways to donate.  These are:

• Brain stem death - This is where a person no longer has activity in their brain stem, due to a severe brain injury.  They have permanently lost the potential for consciousness and the capacity to breathe.  This may happen even when a ventilator is keeping the person's heart beating and oxygen is circulated through their blood.  
• Circulatory death -  Is the irreversible loss of function of the heart and lungs, after a cardiac arrest from which the patient cannot or should not be resuscitated.  It can also be the planned withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from a patient within the Intensive Care Unit or the Emergency Department. 
• Living Donation - Whilst you are still alive you can choose to donate a kidney, a small section of your liver, discarded bone from a hip or knee replacement and also your amniotic membrane (placenta). 

As consent can cause upset among the families of the deceased, you need to make the decision before you go anywhere and there really is no time like the present.

So make sure you have joined the NHS Organ Donor Register and tell a relative or close friend about your decision to donate.  Having a medical condition does not always prevent you from becoming an organ or tissue donor.  There are a few conditions that will exclude you from donating organs and tissue:

• HIV
• Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), or
• Cancer that has spread within the last 12 months.

So please, if you do anything today, save some lives and join the Donor Register at:  https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/register-to-donate.