Why was a national scheme like the one implemented in April 2006 not introduced sooner?
The current scheme is based very strongly on getting the best tissue match for the recipient, as the information at the time (1986 – 1993) showed that this was very important. More recent information shows that this is less necessary now, as other factors have been increasingly recognised as important. The national allocation scheme has evolved progressively over the past 20 years to improve outcomes, ensure equity of access to transplantation and also to maximise the number of transplants performed. Previous schemes were designed to do this but the data available have shown that these schemes needed to be adapted to make access to transplantation fairer.
