Elizabeth Ward (British campaigner)

Elizabeth Despard Ward MBE (née Rynd; formerly Aston;[1] 11 October 1926 – 20 July 2020) was a British healthcare campaigner known for pioneering organ donor cards and founding the charity Kidney Care UK.

Using this method, she raised £70 million for hospital renal units, and ensured kidney patients were the focus of television programme Blue Peter's Christmas 1982 appeal.

Described as "redoubtable and fiery", Ward also had a "near fanatical zeal" in advocating for patients in the face of sexism, prejudice, and the traditional power balance within the medical establishment.

Upon realising that donor cards alone were not enough to eliminate the shortage of kidneys available for transplant, she also advocated for the UK's introduction of opt-out consent for organ donation.

[2][3] A medical recommendation of a high protein diet incorporating foods like steak and cream led Ward to consider the financial challenges that many families with a sick child would face.

With input from her friend Robert Platt, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, she developed a plan for a charity called the British Kidney Patient Association, which would launch the next year.

[2][8] After daily phone calls over a period of three years, Ward was able to convince Biddy Baxter, producer of the children's television programme Blue Peter, to dedicate its 1982 Christmas appeal to raising money for young people suffering kidney failure.

Ward followed up by explaining that Timbo had attended Harrow School with Joseph's son James and asked him to consider how he would feel if their roles were reversed.

Two or three weeks later, she was invited to a meeting with senior civil servants at the Department of Health and Social Security to discuss what became the Government's Kidney Donor Scheme.

[11] Ahead of the meeting, Ward worked with a friend at a London advertising agency to produce a mock-up of a poster promoting the scheme she had in mind.

Discussions with patients, doctors and ethicists on this topic led Ward to conclude that an opt-out system was the only possible solution to the shortage of donor organs.

This had the full support of medical professionals, which Ward said meant it passed through Parliament with ease despite objections on the grounds that the law would restrict the freedom of the individual.

[13] Ward initially faced challenges in getting treatment for Timbo; she wrote of some doctors' "egotistical, self-satisfied traits" that were "the cause of much patient unhappiness in the renal world".

[3][2] She later wrote of receiving hundreds of letters from patients and their families disappointed at their treatment, or lack of it, saying she "never hesitated to take up cudgels on behalf of these people and attempt to sort out each individual problem".

The two of them founded a meat-canning business where she worked as sales director, which her BMJ obituary linked to her fundraising prowess – "in essence, a massive selling operation".