FAMILIES have been urged to sign up to become organ donors after a father saved his daughter's life in a kidney transplant operation.

Derek Adams, 56, donated a kidney to Kelly Adams, 23, when she developed chronic kidney disease.

The successful operation took place at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford in January last year, and earlier this month Miss Adams gave birth to son Frankie.

"I was a match and it saved Kelly's life – it was a no-brainer for me," said Mr Adams, a van driver from Wheatley, who has backed the Oxford Mail's organ donation campaign.

He added: "I was delighted I was a match. I wanted to do anything I could to help my daughter; any dad would do the same.

"There was no rejection. The kidney started working straight away and Kelly's quality of life has improved so much.

"We got there just before Kelly would have needed dialysis treatment.

"It's a happy ending, a very good outcome, and I would urge people to sign up to the organ donor register."

On September 4, Miss Adams and her fiance Johnny O'Connor celebrated the birth of their son Frankie O'Connor at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Miss Adams said: "Frankie was three weeks early and weighed a healthy 5lb 13oz – now he is 6lb 2oz and doing well."

Jenny Hayes, in charge of the nursing team at the Oxford Transplant Centre, said: "This is fantastic news. Kelly may not have been able to conceive if she had not had the transplant.

"The centre has about 55 related donor transplants a year – sometimes parents and their children can be a match, or siblings or sometimes spouses.

"It's worth checking within families first and if a patient can have a transplant from someone who is directly related they are generally a better match."

Miss Adams added: "I genuinely thought I would never have children. The kidney disease makes it harder to conceive and it would have been very risky to get pregnant under the circumstances.

"My partner and I were delighted when we found out we were expecting and we are planning to get married next year.

"I was off school a lot and diagnosed at 16 and when all my friends were off getting their first jobs I was ill and stuck at home.

"I feel fine now and it's all thanks to my dad. I can't thank him enough.

"I have had no problems since the transplant, and now I'm delighted to be a mum."

Miss Adams said staff at the Oxford Transplant Centre had been "brilliant" and she sees her kidney consultant for regular check-ups.

She added: "If my dad hadn't been a match I might have had to wait a long time for a donor.

"Families should discuss signing up to be donors. Often they don't discuss it until it happens to them."

Mr Adams and his wife Sally, 57, have another daughter Charlotte, 25.

Last year transplant surgeon Dr Rutger Ploeg backed the Oxford Mail organ donation campaign saying more donors were needed than ever before.

Doctors around the world can now save organs that would otherwise be wasted thanks to the "world-leading" work of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust’s team.

Earlier this month, during NHS Blood and Transplant's Organ Donation Week, told how she was lucky to be alive after she blacked out and crashed her car off the A34.

She is now hoping for a pancreas transplant which could change her life by stabilising her diabetes.

Mrs Luker, 39, has brittle diabetes, a particularly hard-to-control type 1 diabetes which causes her blood sugar to rise and drop at rapid rates.

NHS Blood and Transplant has urged people to consider joining the NHS Organ Donor Register by visiting the website organdonation.nhs.uk or by calling 0300 123 2323.

Sally Johnson, director of organ donation at NHS Blood and Transplant, said there were 76 people in Oxfordshire waiting for a transplant.

There were 42 people who received a potentially life-saving transplant between April last year and March.

But five people died in the county last year before receiving the transplant they needed.