PEOPLE will have specify they do not want to donate their organs, under rules coming into force next spring.

Swindon recipients of donated organs have backed the changes. A new NHS campaign is attempting to raise awareness of the law change.

Liden man Perry Jarvis, 56, said receiving a new heart had given him “another bite of the cherry”.

He received the organ transplant in 2015, with his new heart donated by an Essex car crash victim believed to be in his 20s

Perry said: “I have written to the donor’s relatives to say thank you. Without this heart, I would not be here today.

“I was dying. Now, I’m living life to the full. I have been able to go back to work full-time, see my children grow. It’s a great feeling.”

Another heart transplant recipient, Ron Carter, 70, last year backed the changes to the organ donation rules.

He said: “I know from my own time at Papworth Hospital [a specialist heart and lung hospital in Cambridgeshire] a number of people whose child, husband or wife has died and when they’re asked about donating the organs they say no.

“Then they think about it overnight and come in to say, ‘What good is it going to be?’ But Papworth have to say it’s too late.”

The new rules come into force in spring 2020.

Anthony Clarkson, director of organ donation and transplantation for NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “Organ donation is, and always will be, a precious gift.

“Although the law is changing it will still be the generosity of individual donors and their families who decide at the most difficult time to support organ donation, which will ensure more transplants can happen and more lives can be saved.

“We want everyone to know the law around organ donation is changing, to understand how it is changing and the choices available to them."

Some groups will be excluded from the opt-out system, including under-18s, people who lack the capacity to understand the law change and people who have lived in England for less than 12 months.

Jackie Doyle-Price, minister for inequalities, urged people to speak to their loved ones about whether they wanted their organs donated in the event of their death.