'I lost my brother 35 years ago but he has now helped to save over 60,000 lives'

After Peter Cox died of a brain tumour aged 24 in 1989, his family began a campaign that has saved thousands of lives.

Their fight was won almost exactly 30 years ago, when the NHS Organ Donor Register was launched. It transformed the number of lives the health service could save through transplants. Peter’s sister, Christine Cox, 62, who led the campaign, said: “I think I’d have gone crazy if something positive hadn’t come of Peter’s loss.

“Over 60,000 people are still alive today thanks to the transplants they’ve received. The figures blow my mind. “The real heroes are the people who sign the register and the families who allow their loved ones’ organs to be donated.”

While Peter lay in pain on his death bed, he made Christine and parents Rosemary and John vow that all his usable organs would be donated. Christine said it “took a bit of an effort” to carry out his wishes. In the end, his organs went to help 17 people but Christine was shocked at the holes in the system. At the time, unless a paramedic found a donor card in the pockets of a dying patient, their organs would be wasted. There was a register of people waiting for an organ but no list of people willing to be donors.

The family, from Wolverhampton, had the idea of a confidential register of people’s wishes of whether to be an organ donor when they die. Christine said: “We wrote to Virginia Bottomley who was Secretary of State for Health and suggested the register idea and got a reply from a minion saying it wasn’t government policy and it never would be.

“That was like a red rag to a bull and we started our campaign.” About three years later, the NHS Organ Donor Register was created in 1994. Although organ donation had been happening in the UK since the 1950s, after 1994 the number of annual transplants has roughly doubled to an average of over 2,800 per year. Christine’s campaign included the idea of “deemed consent”, which the Tory government at the time would not implement.

This change – meaning most adults are considered to have agreed to be donors unless they have opted out – was promised in England by then-Prime Minister Theresa May in 2017. It became law in 2020 after a Change the Law for Life campaign by the Mirror fronted by youngster Max Johnson, who received a heart transplant from Keira Ball. Christine, awarded an MBE in 2021 for her campaigning, says: “I can’t thank the Mirror enough for all the reporting of our campaign.

“So many people owe their lives to what the Mirror has done.” She added: “Losing Peter was a terrible tragedy. Goodness knows what he would have gone on to do with his life. He was a bright chap and was the life and soul of parties. I suppose, what we did was instead of having counselling, and it helped keep Peter’s memory alive.

“Before he died we thought we were the luckiest family in the world.” In 1988, civil engineer Peter went to an office Christmas party and was struggling to remember the names of his colleagues. Early the next year he was hospitalised after developing a long and terrible migraine. It was then found he had terminal brain cancer.

The number of people on the waiting list for a lifesaving transplant is at a 10-year high. Only around 1% of deaths are suitable for organ donation. Dr Jo Farrar, chief executive of NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “Christine and her family have made a profound impact on society.

“I want to thank them for their determination and compassion which led to the setting up of the NHS Organ Donor Register. Thank you also to the Mirror for your unwavering support for organ donation.”

Join the register by visiting www.organdonation.nhs.uk or by calling 0300 1232323. You can also sign up at your GP surgery

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