NEWPORT MP Paul Flynn has called on the UK government to follow Wales’ example and introduce an opt-out organ donation system.

Speaking in Parliament, the long-serving Labour MP pointed to the example of Matthew Lammas of Allt-yr-yn, who died in 2012 aged 23 after a heart transplant failed.

At the start of December last year, the Welsh Government introduced a new system meaning all adults in Wales are assumed to have given consent for their organs to be donated when they die unless they have specifically opted out.

Figures released at the end of last month showed 39 patients in Wales had organ transplants through the new system.

Mr Flynn said he hoped introducing a similar system in England would help avoid more deaths like those of Mr Lammas, who received a heart transplant in 2012 but died three years later.

“A 20-year-old constituent of mine made an indelible and unforgettable impression on my honourable friend the member for Newport East [Jessica Morden] and me with the tragic story of his half a dozen abortive attempts to get the organ transplant that he desperately needed,” he said.

“Six months later, I attended his funeral.

“He died because of a lack of donors.

“The Welsh Government has announced that as a result of their pioneering and courageous legislation on the new law of presumed consent, 39 patients in Wales had had organ transplants.

“When can we get the government to accelerate in this house a law that will allow the same process and the same advantage to be enjoyed throughout the rest of the United Kingdom?”

Leader of the house David Lidington said he would refer the matter to health secretary Jeremy Hunt and his team.

“Very many of us, myself included, know friends or family members who have literally been given a new lease of life through a successful transplant,” he said.

“All healthy adults need to consider whether they should make arrangements to make clear their wishes in advance of their death.

“It is also important that our medical professionals are trained in how to make an approach to families at a critically emotional moment when a relative is at the point of death, to ask them sensitively to consider whether to give consent for a transplant to take place.”

There are currently 226 patients in Wales waiting for organ transplants, and only six per cent of adults have opted out of the system.