A SURVEY reveals 61 per cent of North West people back legislation changes to alleviate donor organ shortage.

The figures released by the National Kidney Research Fund show the majority of people support a new law which would assume a dying person had given permission to donate organs unless their objection had been registered.

At present, if a person does not carry a donor card, is not registered on the NHS donation computer, or a close relative refuses permission, their organs can not be used for transplantation.

There are currently 5,000 people nationally waiting for a transplant. The report highlighted that while 86 per cent of people in the North West were aware that people die while awaiting a transplant only 30 per cent of those questioned had a donor card. When people were asked why they had not registered, 31 per cent admitted that, they had "just not got round to it yet".