Tuesday 7 April 2026

This blog comes from Dr Becky Payne, Specialty Doctor on the Inpatient Unit at Trinity. 

The gift of sight: corneal donations at Trinity

At Trinity, we believe in helping people live every moment as fully as possible. This includes reassuring people that their wishes for their care after death will be honoured and supported.

As part of this, many people hope that they can donate organs but worry that this won’t be possible with certain illnesses. However, for most of the people we care for (up to 60%), it is possible to donate the eyes. This can give others the gift of sight, which is a wonderful legacy, that can bring meaning and comfort to our patients and their families.

Over the past three years, we have worked to raise awareness about corneal donation and to increase the number of people who can donate at Trinity.

For the last year, we have also been part of a national project run by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) which aims to increase eye donations from hospices across the country. During this time, 33 patients donated their corneas, potentially saving the sight of up to 330 people.

Why corneal donation matters

The cornea is the clear window at the front of the eye. If it becomes damaged or cloudy, a person may lose their sight. Corneal blindness is the fifth most common cause of sight loss in the UK,

Every week, NHSBT hope to receive 350 corneas to fulfil the need, which is 70 a day.

When someone donates their corneas after they die, they can help to improve the sight of up to ten people, as each cornea can be divided. The sclera (the white of the eye) can also be used to repair injuries.

What we have done at Trinity

We have improved the whole process of enabling eye donation, from the initial conversations with patients and their families, through to facilitating the retrieval process.

We want staff, patients and families to feel comfortable talking about corneal donation.
We recognised that many staff felt that they lacked knowledge about the subject and felt uncomfortable raising it. Causes of this discomfort could be concern about distressing patients or families, or their own beliefs about donation in general.

We focused on three areas: awareness, education and confidence.

Raising awareness

• We appointed two doctors and two nurses working on the inpatient unit at Trinity as our corneal donation champions. They held an information stand on World Sight Day with a quiz, cupcakes and informative posters, which helped start lots of conversations with staff and families. We have also written articles for the staff newsletter.

• We updated our Care After Death and Tissue Donation policies and patient leaflets. These now make clear that corneal donation is possible from the hospice and explain in simple terms how the process works and how it can benefit recipients.

• We created flow charts for staff, explaining how to contact the National Referral Centre after someone dies. These were added to the everyday inpatient unit materials and the ward office noticeboards. The charts explain what questions families may be asked when they are contacted by the National Referral Centre so staff can prepare them.

• We added a clear reminder to nursing and medical handover sheets.

• We added messages about corneal donation to the information screens in the inpatient unit.

Providing education

Some examples of the educational resources and events are:

• We held multiple teaching sessions to maximise the number of inpatient unit colleagues who could attend

• We created a video for our intranet with questions and answers about corneal donation, for example, explaining who can donate and how many people are waiting for transplants

• We taught staff how to care for someone’s eyes after they die

• We have access to new educational videos from NHSBT, which give advice on how to open the conversation with patients

Building confidence

Many staff felt unsure about raising the topic of donation. Research from NHSBT shows that patients often expect us to ask or sometimes assume we already know their wishes.

At Trinity, we are already used to talking about subjects that can feel difficult. Now, asking about corneal donation has become a routine part of advance care planning and taking a patient’s history.

We remind staff that:

• Asking about corneal donation is a positive opportunity for some patients

• Donation can give people a sense of control and legacy

• We never try to persuade anyone

• If someone says no, that is the end of the conversation

Making it part of everyday care

Once we had the systems in place, we focused on making it part of normal practice.

Part of this is ensuring that a person’s wishes around corneal donation are communicated between staff at twice daily handovers. This means that it is always part of the daily conversations about patient care and has now become normal for staff.

In the last year, 33 patients donated their corneas, potentially saving the sight of up to 330 people. It is a fully embedded part of the holistic care we give patients at Trinity.