Waiting to Live

Client: NHS Blood and Organ Transplant

There are many things a child should be waiting for: their first tooth, their first day at school and of course, to grow up. No child should be waiting to live. 

In June 2023, 233 children were on the waiting list for an organ transplant in the UK. Among them was three-year-old Ralph who had been diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer, and needed a multi-organ transplant (liver, pancreas and intestines) to survive. 

The wait is due to an organ shortage in the UK caused by sensitivity in broaching the subject, and the fact families need to proactively ‘opt-in’ to register their child for organ donation. Many are unaware of this process. 

To get parents to think about the unthinkable and register their child as a donor and in turn give Ralph and the other 232 children a chance to live, a team was mobilised to develop a creative integrated campaign– at pace. 

WPP volunteers, members of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (WI) and professional puppeteers knitted hundreds of near-life-sized dolls representing the 232 children, each linked by a QR code to a child’s story and placed in hospital waiting rooms across the UK. 

The campaign sparked a nationwide conversation and led to a significant shift in attitudes. In September alone, there was a 4% uplift in opt-in registrations from Under 18s and a 115% rise in NHS website visits. 

And two children waiting to live no longer have to wait, having received life-saving multi-organ transplants.