A new study has found there is scope to increase the number of eye donations from patients cared for in hospice and palliative care settings – donations needed for sight-restoring surgeries.
Researchers from the University of Southampton and clinical partners, including NHS Blood and Transplant, carried out the study.
It found just a small fraction of eligible patients in hospice and palliative care settings are being approached to consider eye donation.
The researchers say practice needs to change so that patients who wish to donate are being offered the opportunity as a part of routine end-of-life care.
Over two million people in the UK are living with sight loss and some conditions, such as keratoconus and Fuchs’ corneal dystrophy, can be treated with surgery, which removes all or part of a damaged cornea and replaces it with healthy donor tissue (corneal transplant). But there is a shortfall in the supply of donor tissue needed for operations.
NHS Blood and Transplant aims to achieve a weekly stock of 350 eyes for use in surgery or research. But from April 2021 to March 2022, only 88 eyes on average were donated per week.
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