ALMOST 40 people have died waiting for organ transplants in Swindon since 2007.

NHS health chiefs have urged people to tell their families they want to become organ donors.

Hundreds of potentially life-saving operations are missed each year because families don’t know that their relative wanted to donate their organs, the NHS Blood and Transplant said.

There are currently 24 people in Swindon waiting for an organ transplant. Over a third of the town – 78,000 people – are listed on the organ donor register.

Anthony Clarkson, of NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “It’s a tragedy that people are dying unnecessarily every year in Swindon waiting for transplants.

“We know that if everyone who supported donation talked about it and agreed to donate, most of those lives would be saved.”

According to NHS Blood and Transplant surveys, 80 per cent of people support organ donation – but less than half have spoken with others about donating their organs.

The organisation is behind Organ Donation Week, which begins today.

Families who agree to donate their relative’s organs say it helps them cope with the grief of losing a family member, NHS Blood and Transplant said.

The NHS’s Anthony Clarkson added: “This Organ Donation Week tell your family you want to save lives. A few words now can make an extraordinary difference. It will also make things much easier for your family to make the right decision.”

Paul Vater, chief operating officer at Swindon Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “We want people to tell their family they want to save lives and to register. By sharing this with their families it makes it much easier for their family to make the right decision should an organ donation situation arise.

“Every week across the country more than three families say no to a donation because they don’t know what their relative wanted.”

Earlier this summer the Adver reported that almost 500 people in Wiltshire were alive today thanks to organ donors.

Ron Carter, 68, of Haydon Wick, was one of them. The grandfather was given a new lease of life following a heart transplant.

He said: “Thanks to my donor I’m alive and I’m fit and health. I’m in constant admiration of him and all the other donors out there and not a day goes by when I don’t wake up being thankful for the gift of life.”

To register as an organ donor, call 0300 123 23 23 or visit www.organdonation.nhs.uk.