MORE than two dozen people in Bury have died while waiting for an organ transplant has been revealed.

NHS Blood and Transplant has revealed that 27 people from Bury have not survived long enough to receive a transplant over the last decade.

And today there are still 21 people from the area desperately waiting for the call to say a donor has been found who can save their life.

The figures have been revealed to mark the start of Organ Donation Week and a campaign has been launched to urge people to tell their families they want to become donors.

NHS Blood and Transplant is concerned that hundreds of life saving transplants are being missed every year because families do not know what their relative wanted.

Amy Preston, a specialist nurse in organ donation for the North West said: “What is tragic is these figures could potentially be reduced if the people who want to donate tell their families.

“It is families who need to know so when we approach them they are aware that this something their loved one wanted to do.

“We used to say one in three would die. This information is now really bringing home to people how those living in the region and our communities are affected.

“These are the people you go to school with, who you work with, who your children play with, and are waiting every day for that transplant.”

In Manchester, there are currently 306 people waiting for a transplant, and 6,414 people nationally.

The region is also short of black and Asian donors with 101 black or Asian people currently waiting for a transplant.

In 2015 the NHS reported that nationally more than 6,000 people had died before receiving a transplant.

Anthony Clarkson, assistant director of organ donation and transplantation for NHS Blood and Transplant, adds: “It’s a tragedy that people are dying unnecessarily every year in Manchester waiting for transplants.

“We know that if everyone who supported donation talked about it and agreed to donate, most of those lives would be saved.

“In Manchester there are more than 863,000 people on the NHS Organ Donor Register. However if you want to be a donor, your family’s support is still needed for donation to go ahead.”