Rachel Leake needs a life-saving kidney transplant. Her late daughter was a willing donor but her kidneys have been given to strangers, against her dying wish.

Laura Ashworth, Ms Leake’s daughter, was unconscious for days whenr she suffered extensive brain damage after a suspected asthma attack. She died at Bradford Royal Infirmary at the age of 21, with her mother at her bedside.

Ms Ashworth, the mother of a two-year-old girl, was on the NHS Organ Donor Register and had told her mother that she would help her if the time came – but this was never formally recorded.

The Human Tissue Authority now says that it will consider changing the rules surrounding organ donation to allow people to bequeath directly body parts to family members or friends in “exceptional circumstances”.

People can donate an organ to loved ones in need when they are alive but are unable to nominate someone to receive a donation in the event of their death.

Instead, body parts from registered donors go to help recipients for whom they provide the best match and whose clinical need is greatest.

One of Ms Ashworth’s kidneys was given to a man in Sheffield and the second to a man in London. Her liver was donated to a 15-year-old girl. Mrs Leake, who is now the main carer for her granddaughter, remains on the waiting list for a kidney.

She is in the process of arranging a living donation via her 50-year-old sister, but said that her daughter’s wishes would have been to donate an organ to help her.

“I am angry, really angry,” she said yesterday. “I am not finding comfort in the fact that she helped three people. All I wanted to do was carry out her wishes.

“The thing that hurts the most is how Laura would feel. She would be devastated that she was not able to help me.”

The decision in the case was made by the Human Tissue Authority, which has faced calls to change its position. Adrian McNeil, its chief executive, told The Times that he did not wish to comment on individual cases.

However, he said that if a relative had already applied to become a living donor, there might be “a clear and obvious case” for a direct donation after their death.

“The ethical issue is important as there is a waiting list for people wanting donors. For some people it can be a matter of life and death.”

The authority “recognises that there may be exceptional situations when this rule might be reconsidered,” he said. The authority was consulting medical experts and interest groups and is expected to make a final decision this summer. A review of the policy was taking place but while it was in progress similar requests would be turned down as a matter of course.

UK Transplant, which administers the Organ Donation Register, offered its condolences to Ms Ashworth’s family but a spokesman added that regulations ensured that it was not possible for anyone to “jump the queue” in order to receive an organ donation.

Gift of life

— Nearly 7,000 people, including 119 children, are waiting for a kidney transplant – the most common operation

— There were only 1,248 such transplants in Britain throughout 2007-08

— It is hoped that at least 50 extra patients a year will benefit from a new database that seeks to match reciprocal couples as donors and recipients

— There have been three such “paired” kidney donations in Britain. The latest happened this week at hospitals in Manchester and Cambridge

— Anyone can become a living donor for a friend or relative, subject to checks to ensure that they have a compatible blood type and tissue match, and are fit to undergo surgery

— Donor and recipient are interviewed separately and together to ensure that there is no payment or coercion involved in the donation

— The process can take up to 6 months

— There have been five “altruistic” kidney donations, where living donors donate an organ voluntarily to complete strangers

— US surgeons carried out the first six-way kidney transplant operation, involving 12 people, this week. It was made possible by an altruistic donor

Source: UK Transplant, Times database

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