Below is the response to a media enquiry we received from the BBC.
Question: Do you have the level of NHS investment required to provide the service you wish to provide for your patients? Please explain.
Response: Yes. NHS Golden Jubilee is commissioned by National Services Division (NSD) and funded by the Scottish Government and, following a comprehensive review in 2023/24, we received additional investment to expand staffing and capacity for the Scottish National Advanced Heart Failure Service (SNAHFS).
Question: Do you have access to the technologies and resources required to provide the service you wish to provide for your patients? Please explain.
Response: Yes. We have continued to invest in specialist expertise and technology to support growth in mechanical circulatory support (MCS) for Scottish patients both before and after transplant. NHS Golden Jubilee is also one of only four centres in the UK delivering both Donation after Circulatory Death (DCD) and Donation after Brainstem Death (DBD) organ retrieval. We have three trained surgeons using the Organ Care System (OCS)
Question: Is a lack of theatre space and ICU beds affecting your ability to provide transplants? What have you done to counteract this?
Response: No. Patients requiring heart transplantation or mechanical circulatory support through SNAHFS are always prioritised for theatre and ICU capacity. As a specialist centre without emergency department pressures, alongside the lack of a competing co-located lung transplant/respiratory ECMO service, NHS Golden Jubilee is perhaps uniquely positioned to manage this demand without impacting transplant activity.
Question: Data we have received following FOI requests to NHSBT show that your centre has turned down hearts and lungs annually for “centre” reasons.
Response: Decisions to decline donor organs are based primarily on clinical judgement, including organ quality (donor age/heart function), ischaemic time (the length of time that a donor heart will be in transit and not physiologically perfused with blood – this can be prohibitively high for a relatively remote geographic centre such as ours, especially out of hours when there is less airport access) and how good a match it may be for a specific recipient (blood group/ height/ weight/ immunological compatibility). During 2025/26 NHS Golden Jubilee has never declined an organ due to internal issues such as lack of ICU beds or access to theatre space.
Question: In recent years, Glasgow’s heart transplant department has improved the performance of its heart transplantation services. What has led to this? Has the centre received additional funding? Please explain.
Response: In recent years, NHS Golden Jubilee has consistently delivered high numbers of heart transplants, including a record 40 procedures in 2022–23. Our transplant rate is among the highest in Europe per head of population, and unadjusted patient outcomes (90‑day and one‑year survival) are currently the best in the UK based on NHSBT data from 2020-2024.
Our ability to undertake both Donation after Circulatory Death (DCD) and Donation after Brain Death (DBD) heart retrieval using the Organ Care System (often referred to as ‘Heart in a Box’) has increased the number of hearts available for patients in Scotland.
While NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) funds the use of the OCS machine for DCD retrievals, we also receive dedicated funding from the Scottish Government that enables us to use the same technology for DBD retrievals, where appropriate. This additional investment means we can safely retrieve hearts from longer distances, maintain organ quality for longer, and increase the number of viable organs for transplantation.
As a result, our ability to accept donor organs has improved substantially over the past 5-10 years (as per published NHSBT reports), with only one UK centre having a higher acceptance rate.
This improvement in performance reflects not only the advanced technology we use, but the strength, experience and unity of our multidisciplinary team (MDT). Our MDT has significantly evolved and strengthened over the past 10 years with the development of a core transplant-dedicated team of cardiologists, transplant and retrieval surgeons, intensivists, specialist nurses, allied health professionals (AHPs) and clinical perfusionists, who work seamlessly as one team to deliver high‑quality, patient‑centred care. This strengthening of our team has been mirrored in an increase in transplant activity, temporary MCS activity, patient outcomes and a reduction in our organ decline rates.
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