Specialist Family Approach Audit

Abstract

Currently, family members of potential tissue donors are contacted and asked to consider donation by a Specialist Nurse - Tissue Donation, working within the National Referral Centre (NRC) of NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) Tissue Services, in one of two ways:

i) by a ‘traditional’ approach (TA) (Family member was approached about tissue donation within the hospital where the potential donor died).
ii) a ‘specialist family’ approach (SFA) (Family member ‘may’ have been alerted to the option of tissue donation within the hospital where the potential donor died).

The consent rate in a traditional approach is higher than in a specialist approach (77% vs 25%). These differing rates are linked to the differing populations (pre-screened vs unscreened) accessed through current approach-specific referral systems but centre around the preparedness of family members to be asked about tissue donation as most families receiving a SFA will not have been ‘alerted’ to this possibility by the hospital staff. This was highlighted as a Tissue Services quality objective in 2010/2011.

Currently there is no standardisation in how SFAs are undertaken by the different nurses within the NRC. There is also little external evidence to suggest how families should be approached and what words, phrases or connections are used. Furthermore the outcome to be achieved during an SFA is unclear.

This audit acts as a baseline to determine what is currently happening during family approaches and identify the potentially good aspects of individual approaches. The results will feed in to the development of a standardised process for undertaking SFAs and re-audit will then follow to establish whether these standardised processes are widely implemented.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Tracy Long-Sutehall: orcid.org/0000-0002-6661-9215

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