Kidney offering

Kidney offering for all deceased donor kidney offers

  • The on-call renal recipient transplant coordinator will receive the offer of a kidney from the duty office of ODT.
  • Transplant coordinator contacts transplant surgeon and asks for a decision as to whether the kidney should be accepted for the named patient.
  • If the decision has been made to go ahead, then the transplant coordinator contacts the patient’s own local Consultant Nephrologist and the RIE on call Consultant Nephrologist, to ensure that the patient is fit and should be called.
  • If the offer is made of a standard criteria kidney for a named patient, the call to the patient’s nephrologist is to check the recipient’s fitness for surgery, and should not be a discussion about acceptance.
  • If the offer is made of a standard criteria kidney for a named patient, and the surgeon plans to decline this offer, he/she should phone the second on call surgeon to discuss this. The expectations is that these SCD kidneys will be accepted.
  • Particular consideration must be given for offers for highly sensitised patients/long waiters, who will be flagged in the text from ODT.

Donation after circulatory death (DCD)

  • DCD kidneys are allocated based on donor age:
  • 5-59 years: these are allocated regionally using the same allocation scheme as for DBD kidneys. East of Scotland forms part of the northern region with 6 other centres.
  • >59 years: these are allocated to Scotland and the kidneys offered to the centres for the top two patients on the matching run.
  • Recipients should be warned when they are called that there is a chance that the transplant will not proceed.