Brothers benefit from kidney sharing scheme

When Neil Jeffs got a text from his brother, he said he was "blown away" as his sibling had just said he would donate his kidney to him.

Neil, from Coventry, had already undergone a kidney transplant due to a health condition in 2005.

At that time, his mother was a match and for 17 years it was a successful transplant - but then it began to fail.

However, while his younger brother Paul was willing to donate, there was a snag - he was not a match for Neil.

That's when they were helped by the UK Living Kidney Sharing Scheme, run by NHS Blood and Transplant.

They use algorithms to match the hundreds of recipients registered at any one time to find the best combinations of recipients and patients.

In Neil's case, he benefitted as Paul's kidney was donated to someone else on the transplant list which allowed Neil to have a stranger's kidney.

The overall process involved three recipients and three donors and Neil said the best way he could think to explain it was like a chain for a series of house sales.

"All of the links are very closely related and if one of the links fails, that particular chain fails at that time," he said.

His brother Paul said he was told every kidney had six unique numbers and "when my mum donated, I imagine she must have had quite a lot of matching with Neil".

"But when we did the test, we found that...our bloods were fine, I think at that point there was no antibodies, so there wasn't a problem with that.

"However, of those six numbers, there wasn't a single one that matched, so what they do is, my understanding is, that across the country they just throw it into a database.

"Then it will generate that I match with someone who is somewhere in the country and then... we actually did it, it turned out that it was a six-person exchange."

The younger brother said he thought he had seen a change at about the end of 2022 in his sibling and "we all noticed visibly that Neil seemed lacking in energy".

"They told Neil that his kidney... wasn't working, so I spoke to my wife," he added.

"I think it was about 23 February I sent Neil a message and said... 'I'm willing to donate'."

Neil said: "When I got the text saying that he was willing and able to donate his kidney, [I was] just blown away.

"It does make me very emotional when I think... what Paul has done."

The kidney sharing scheme is anonymous and confidential - people do not know who their donor or recipient is.

And swaps go ahead only if every pair - up to three in total - can be matched. No patient misses out.

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