Doctor leaders have demanded the government set a timetable for a possible shift to an opt-out transplant system.

The British Medical Association has written to Public Health Minister Aileen Campbell, asking her to clarify the timetable for a proposed consultation on organ donation laws.

It comes after new figures showed 400 people received potentially life-saving transplants last year in Scotland. However 36 people died and 66 people were removed from the transplant list, including those who have become too ill for surgery and the minister acknowledged that more needs to be done.

Read more: Opt-out transplant system could come to Scotland after patients die waiting for transplant

The Scottish Government said the consultation will take place "in the near future."

Earlier this year, a bill lodged by the former Labour MSP Anne McTaggart calling for a soft opt-out system - where families are still consulted - was rejected by MSPs by a slim majority.

The Scottish Government said they were unhappy with certain aspects of the bill, although not opposed to the principle of deemed consent.

In a last minute intervention, the then Public Health Minister, Maureen Watt laid an amendment in the debate stating the government would consult "immediately" with a view to legislating itself in 2017.

It is suggested that an automatic donor register could save up to 70 lives a year.

However the government has been accused of back-peddling on its pledge by saying it is consulting on a range of strategies to help increase organ donor rates.

Read more: Opt-out transplant system could come to Scotland after patients die waiting for transplant

Charities and the BMA say patients will continue to die needlessly while the government deliberates further on the issue. Labour say a full consultation has already been carried out, prior to the last bill.

Meanwhile, Mark Griffin, has taken forward a fresh bid to bring the opt-out system to Scotland.

Dr Sue Robertson, a member of the BMA’s Scottish Council, and a renal doctor in Dumfries: “It is good to see that donation rates have increased after a decrease in the previous year, but people are still dying whilst waiting for organs.

"Organ transplantation is an area that has seen amazing medical achievements but has not yet reached its full life-saving and life-transforming potential. We strongly believe that there is still more that can be done to improve organ donation rates and we have written to the Minister to ask her to clarify the timetable for the proposed consultation. All the time we waste means that more lives will be lost.”

Mark Griffin said: "One person dying whilst waiting for a transplant is one too many, but 36 in the last year is a horrifying number.

"We can save lives with a simple change to our law to move to a soft opt out system.

"That is why I am bringing forward a bill to change the law around organ donation."