A YEAR after two North-East mates took part in the region's first "friend-to-friend" transplant latest figures suggest that their example has inspired others to do the same.

Delighted UK Transplant officials say they have seen a 25 per cent increase in the number of kidney transplants involving an unrelated living donor since November last year.

Most of the national increase in friend-to-friend transplants - rising from 76 to 95 - followed the widely reported story of Derek Marshall and Bill Brough.

Derek, 57, from Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough, donated one of his kidneys to help his life-long friend, Bill, from Great Ayton, last December. At the time, both men said they hoped that others would follow their example.

Bill, 55, suffered kidney failure after being struck down by Legionnaires' disease on a business trip to Mexico.

Derek, who had been friends with Bill since they attended primary school in Middlesbrough, was so moved by his friend's plight that he offered to be tested as a potential donor.

After counselling by James Cook University Hospital donor liaison nurse Mandy McGowan, Derek agreed to donate one of his kidneys to Bill.

Bill said he is now enjoying life to the full once again.

"My life has changed completely. It is superb. If I look back to a year ago and consider how I feel today it is simply unbelievable," said Bill, who runs an international shipping firm, OBT of Thornaby.

"I have been back at work since early March and everything is fine. I am travelling again which I wasn't able to do. I've been to South Africa, the Czech Republic and I am planning to go to Japan and Texas."

Bill is doubly grateful to surgeons at the Middlesbrough hospital after he underwent an unrelated operation in September to correct a potentially dangerous arterial weakness.

Derek, 57, who works for Bill's firm, said he was amazed at how easily he had recovered. He said: "I am absolutely fine and you can hardly see the scar."

Ms McGowan said three friends had come forward as potential donors during the last year.

Currently 5,053 people are on the UK Transplant waiting list for kidneys. UK Transplant said they had also seen a 12 per cent rise in related living kidney donor transplants during the same 12 month period.