New laws to ensure racist criteria are not used to determine the recipient of transplant organs or blood transfusions could be introduced in Britain, after a transplant agency acted in the donation of a kidney from a man whose family insisted it must be given to a white patient.
The Health Secretary, Mr Frank Dobson, has started an investigation into the circumstances of the transplant, which took place at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield earlier this year after the man died there, and was revealed in a BBC Newsnight report this week. Yesterday Mr Dobson said he would be prepared to change the law.
"I haven't been an opponent of apartheid all my adult life to see it being introduced in the National Health Service (NHS). We will not tolerate it," he said.
The revelation that the family insisted the donor must be white and that the UK Transplant Support Services Authority (UKTSSA) accepted the conditions, although the agency left it up to hospitals to accept or refuse the kidney on the basis of the conditions, has been condemned by surgeons and MPs.
It is understood that staff at the agency alerted their union officials at Unison about the case last week. The staff had been aware that the conditions were "racist" but under the present rules they could do nothing but pass the family's wishes to the hospitals.
But Mr Simon Newell, the regional officer for Unison in the west, who was contacted by UKTSSA about the donation, said yesterday that the agency acted illegally when it accepted the kidney.
After seeking legal advice, the union discovered the agency was possibly in breach of the Race Relations Act and, because his members had participated in the donation, Mr Newell said they could also face legal action under the Act.
Prof Andrew Bradley, president of the British Transplant Society, said the Sheffield case could prevent people coming forward as donors.
The Northern General is one of Britain's leading transplant centres and it has defended its actions, denying that the kidney was accepted with the conditions attached.
In a statement, Mr Phil Taylor, acting chief executive, said yesterday: "Under no circumstances could we condone conditions being placed on the consent given for the donation of organs."