Plans by Gordon Brown to make everyone a potential organ donor unless they actively “opt out” will be roundly rejected by the Government’s official advisory body next week, The Times has learnt.

The Prime Minister and the Chief Medical Officer for England believe that thousands of lives could be saved by introducing “presumed consent” – where everyone is automatically placed on the organ donor register unless they or their family object.

However, an official review by the Organ Donation Taskforce will conclude next week that a change in the law is not warranted, despite support for the move among doctors and some patient groups.

It will place the Prime Minister at odds with advisers from the medical and scientific community for the second time in a year, after the decision to reclassify cannabis as a “class B” drug, in defiance of recommendations from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

Mr Brown has argued previously that presumed consent, already used in Spain and other countries, could help to “close the aching gap between the potential benefits of transplant surgery in the UK and the limits imposed by our current system of consent”.

More than 8,000 people are on the waiting list for donor organs in Britain, but only 3,000 transplants are carried out each year.

But the taskforce, an expert working group of healthcare professionals, lawyers and ethicists set up to look at ways to increase the number of organ donations, is understood to believe that an opt-out system would do little to boost the number of life-saving transplants. It is expected to say such a move would create practical problems for the NHS and risk a potential backlash among the public.

Last night a senior Whitehall source told The Times: “It’s fair to say this report is not helpful to the case for a change in the law to presumed consent.”

The recommendations are not binding on the Government and ministers may still bring legislation forward. Reports, page 15

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