Two leading Birmingham clinicians are to address the first ever national conference aimed at increasing the number of organ donors.

Professor Julian Bion, Professor of Intensive Care Medicine, and liver consultant Professor James Neuberger, both from Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB), will be guest speakers at the first National Donation Congress in London on 8 March 2012.

The event is aimed at improving donor referrals and donor management which, it is hoped, will result in more transplants both at QEHB and at other centres.

Prof Bion will be speaking on the subject of brain death, while Prof Neuberger will be chairing a session entitled "Donor optimisation – where have all the hearts gone?"

Other topics for debate include religious perspectives, donation after circulatory death, and both national guidance and international models of organ donation.

Paul Murphy, National Clinical Lead for Organ Donation at NHS Blood and Transplant, said the event was aimed at complementing and supporting local and regional efforts to promote organ donation.

He added that the programme had been put together with very specific objectives in mind as they move towards the 50 per cent increase in donor numbers called for by the Organ Donation Taskforce, which was set up by the Government in 2006 with the aim of identifying barriers to organ donation.