It’s National Transplant Week. Could there be a better cause to promote than saving a life by donating an organ after death? Twenty million people in the UK are already signed up to it. That’s the number who have opted-in by registering as an organ donor.

But much more needs to be done. Currently, there are 7,500 on the UK organ transplant waiting list. Of these, over 1,000 die every year because no suitable donor is found in time. That's three a day.

In Scotland, 700 people are on the waiting list. Over 20% of Scots awaiting a new heart or liver will die before they receive a transplant.

The numbers needing an organ transplant will continue to rise. An ageing population and medical advances will see to that. More and more donors are needed. 

Events like National Transplant Week will help but we need to do much more.

A couple of week ago, the Welsh Assembly took the courageous decision to introduce an 'opt-out' system. That is, consent to organ donation will be assumed unless the deceased has specifically registered their decision not to be a donor.

It's interesting that it's the Welsh who are the first in the UK to adopt this system. I like to think that donating organs after death is just another aspect of a caring, compassionate society.

Communitarian values remain strong in Wales. As they do in Scotland. Surveys here show 90% support organ donation. But only two million people are on the Scottish donor register. That's less than half the population. The current opt-in system is missing an awful lot of potential donors.

There are arguments against an opt-out system. Will it, for example, have doctors rushing to switch off life-support systems? I think that there are already strong legal, professional and moral guidelines governing doctors' conduct. And where very exceptional individual like Harold Shipman decide to play God, their actions are generally not influenced at all by the administrative framework they happen to be working in.

Then again, some objectors refer to an opt-out system as the 'nationalisation of the human body' or as the 'taxation of body parts'.  I suspect though that these are the sort of people who would also object to measures promoting the healthier lifestyles which could reduce the numbers of transplants needed in the first place. Minimum alcohol pricing and restrictions on opening hours, for instance, might ease the pressure on liver transplants by addressing the 'Drink Till You Drop' society ushered in by the Blair government.

Nevertheless, the most recent proposal by NHS Blood and Transplant to increase the number of donors goes too far. It suggests that those registering as donors should get priority if they ever require a transplant themselves.  This sounds mean and ignoble to me. Transplants should be performed on the basis of need, not what a person has previously 'invested' in the NHS.

Religious objections to an opt-out system are serious ones but surely overcome by every faith's direction to believers to be charitable and to love others more than themselves.  Anyway, if anyone feels strongly against organ transplant for religious, cultural or any other reason, they can register to opt-out.  To reassure such objectors, the opt-out register must be well-publicised and 100% effective in its operation.

It's said that most recipients would prefer their donated organs to come from someone who had made a deliberate decision to donate. However, all statistics indicate that many more people are prepared to donate their organs after death than are registered as potential donors.

Registering to be a donor is like many things in life. We support it wholeheartedly but never get round to filling in the form. Then again, some individuals remain morbidly superstitious about giving instructions regarding their body parts after their earthly demise. Some would rather not go there whilst being more than happy for their organs to be used productively when they no longer have to think about it.

Even if we stick with the current opt-in model, we must stop families overriding an individual's wishes. Currently, 13 per cent of families refuse to give consent for an organ donation even though their deceased relative is on the donation register.

The only reservation about an opt-out system is that it might actually bring about a reduction in the numbers of donors. It's easy to imagine how a coalition of the religiously devout, the anti-state fanatics and the shock-horror gutter media might provoke a backlash.

On balance, though, I think the Welsh have made the right decision. In a caring society, we all have obligations to each other. Almost everyone who is asked the question says they would accept an organ donated from a dead person if they required it to stay alive. That being the case, we should all gladly face up to our part of the bargain.

So, if a deceased person has not registered an objection in his or her lifetime, it is right to assume that permission has been granted for his or her organs to be used to save the lives of others. It is appropriate to assume that citizens who live in a just society would want to act in such an altruistic manner. It is their final, wonderful gift.

Disappointingly, though, the Scottish Transplant Group has recommended to the Scottish Government that it waits to see the outcome of the Welsh experiment before making its own decision about moving to an opt-out system.  Instead, it recommends trying to increase the number of donors through more effective campaigns, using specialist nurses to counsel the families of potential donors and doing extra work with minority ethnic groups where some can be more at risk of needing a transplant.

All this is very worthy and should be done. But the new Welsh system won’t come into effect until 2015. That means years of delay before Scotland even considers an opt-out scheme. 

Seventy two per cent of those questioned in the most recent UK survey supported a shift to an opt-out system.  I'm sure the figure would be even higher in Scotland.

BMA Scotland and the British Heart Foundation Scotland want a change to opt-out. A petition in support of it has been submitted to the Scottish Parliament.We should all get it behind it.  It’s time to follow the lead of our Welsh cousins.