How are kidneys shared locally and nationally?
The national allocation scheme uses a computerised protocol to allocate a particular kidney to an individual patient primarily based on blood group, degree of tissue matching and time spent on the waiting list. Under this scheme, all patients across the country are treated as fairly as possible, although children are given some priority. The local schemes in operation across the country vary slightly from area to area but tend to use very similar protocols to allocate the kidney to a local recipient. Whenever a pair of kidneys is retrieved from a donor, the allocation process usually results in one kidney being used locally and one nationally. The exception to this is if there are two very well matched recipients elsewhere in the country and none locally, in which case both kidneys are used at national level. UK Transplant is reviewing the current national allocation scheme and the protocol may change within the next year.
