While children across the country eagerly await a visit from Santa at Christmas, a new campaign from NHS Blood & Transplant brings to light the more than 230 children waiting for something even more important. A life-saving organ transplant which will help them experience many more Christmases to come.

Currently, there is a significant lack of child organ donors meaning that sadly children and their families waiting for a life-saving donation tragically never get it. To raise awareness and encourage people to sign up as organ donors, NHS Blood & Transplant has launched a new campaign with the help of Wunderman Thompson. The campaign uses dolls to represent the children awaiting donation.

The campaign, titled, ‘Waiting to Live’, sees the dolls represent children on the waiting list appearing across the country, including in waiting rooms for major transplant hubs like Great Ormond Street Hospital, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Evalina Children’s Hospital, among others.

In the hero film a doll representing a child, Ralph, is shown sitting alone in a waiting room while he watches other people pass by him, showing the slow passage of time. Other dolls are then shown sitting alone in other waiting rooms as the copy reads ‘he is not alone’.

The film returns to Ralph, with the message: ‘You can help end the wait. Register yourself and your child as donors’. The soundtrack for the campaign was written and recorded exclusively for the campaign by Chloe Bruce-Gardyne.

The campaign has been created with the backing of hospitals across the country. More than 230 dolls have been handmade by over 140 makers and were based on real children on the waiting list. Small details represent the real children that inspired the dolls, for example Ralph’s doll wears his favourite lightning bolt t-shirt and holds a car, Ava’s doll wears a bear suit for her love of bears and Pablo’s doll is dressed in a karate outfit.

In 2021/22, just 52% of families who were approached about organ donation gave consent for their child’s organs to be donated. This represented just 40 organ donors under the age of 18. However, in cases where a child was already registered on the NHS Organ Donation Register, no family refused donation. The ‘Waiting to Live’ campaign aims to raise awareness of this issue and promote conversation around paediatric organ donation to encourage more parents to consider adding their child to the register.

‘For many children on the transplant waiting list, their only hope is the parent of another child saying ‘yes’ to organ donation at a time of immense sadness and personal grief. Yet families tell us that agreeing to organ donation can also be a source of great comfort and pride,’ says Angie Scales, Lead Nurse for Paediatric Organ Donation at NHS Blood and Transplant.

The campaign will also run across cinema and out-of-home and will be supported by social and influencer activity. The campaign has been led by Wunderman Thompson UK, supported by other WPP agencies including global communications agency, BCW, and media agency, Wavemaker.

The campaign also makes use of QR technology, as each doll wears a badge with QR codes that links through to a dedicated campaign site which allows people to listen to the stories of children who are waiting and sign their own children up for the NHS Organ Donor Register.

In a season defined by giving and togetherness, the ‘waiting to live’ campaign is a poignant reminder of the most important gift of all.