The number of people signing up to the NHS Organ Donor Register (ODR) has been boosted following the broadcast of a documentary featuring a teenage girl who had a successful heart transplant at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB).

Zoe Croft, aged 17, was one of three organ recipients whose progress was followed in "Transplant", a prime-time documentary shown on BBC One on 4 October 2011, looking at the complex process of organ donation.

Almost 5,000 applications to join the ODR were made through the organ donation website and donor line in the two days after the programme was shown, more than four times as many as the same two days in the previous week.

Between 22:00 and 01:00 on the night of the documentary, organ donation website traffic reached almost 30 times the normal level, with calls to the donor line at 10 times the average. More than two thirds of these website visitors and callers also signed up to the ODR.

Lynda Hamlyn, Chief Executive of NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), said: "Transplant made TV history by telling four separate stories of life and death and portraying how organ donation and transplantation brought them together. This has never been seen before on UK television and I am immensely grateful to all the participants for allowing their cases to be shown in this unique way.

“It was a programme full of courage and compassion which is sure to inspire others to truly understand the life saving value of donation.”

Lynda added: “NHSBT is privileged to help manage donation and transplant services for the UK and this documentary has given people some insight into the dedication and expertise of our staff and other healthcare professionals who are involved in the process.

“Organ donation has the potential to help save the lives of the three people who die every day waiting for an organ transplantation - which is why we are working hard to ensure that donation is seen as something that is normal and happens every day, rather than occasionally.

“We know there are high levels of support for organ donation and I would urge anyone who believes in it to make their wishes known by discussing it with their families and then joining the NHS Organ Donor Register.”

The documentary followed the specialist teams on call 24 hours a day to perform retrieval operations – from the moment a potential donor is declared brain stem dead and consent is obtained from the family for organ donation to proceed, through to the organ retrieval and transplant surgeries, and finally onto the recovery of the patients who've benefited from the donor's organs.

Zoe, from Shropshire, was able to have a heart transplant at QEHB performed by Cardiothoracic Surgeon Professor Robert Bonser. 

She was admitted into the Intensive Care Unit having been diagnosed with fluid on her heart. Further tests revealed that it was grossly enlarged and rapidly deteriorating, but within 24 hours of being prioritised on the super urgent transplant list, her family were informed that a suitable organ had become available.

Zoe, who recently started a two-year college course, said: “It is really sad, because another family have lost someone. But I am so grateful to have been given this chance. I can’t say how grateful I am.”

Speaking in the documentary, which also featured an organ donor, Professor Bonser said he felt that people avoid talking about the organ donation issue during their lifetime.

He said: “I believe that people remain reluctant to reflect upon what might happen to them if they’re dead, and therefore there is a reluctance to discuss whether you could donate at that time.”

Statistics show that 40 per cent of families, when faced with the decision to donate their loved one’s organs, decline, even though they may agree in principle with organ donation.