Umbilical Cord Blood

Debate between Mark Tami and David Burrowes

Monday 31st January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burrowes]

I am very grateful for that intervention. The hon. Lady and I share an interest in both sickle cell anaemia and the thalassaemia issue. The UK Thalassaemia Society, whose headquarters are in my constituency, has great interest in this area and, in particular, in the black and minority ethnic communities, who are not able to get matches through the bone marrow register and are acutely in need. That is particularly the case for mixed-race families, who struggle to find any match and are sometimes wholly reliant on a cord blood solution. That is why it is welcome that over the years the previous Government and this Government have increased the number of collection centres to make more of those units available.

However, more needs to be done because, sadly, where Britain once led, it is now falling behind the United States, France, Germany and Spain. All those countries now outstrip our cord blood collection, inhibiting our research capacity. There are 700,000 births each year in the UK and in almost every single instance the cord blood is discarded as medical waste. I am not proposing routine collection, but we must question the health and economic value of throwing all these potentially life-saving cords away. I welcome the fact that the Government are nudging people to agree voluntarily to donate their organs upon death, and I would encourage a similar nudge in encouraging mothers to consider donating umbilical cord blood.

Progress has been made, but more needs to be done. There are 1,600 people waiting for a stem cell transplant, but the unmet need in annual terms is only 440 transplants per year. A bank of just 50,000 umbilical cords would provide the bulk of that need. Sadly, simply increasing the size of the adult register is not an alternative to having cord blood. We already have access to more than 16 million donors on registers worldwide. The work of the Anthony Nolan Trust and others helps us to access that adult register, but we would need a UK adult register of a similar size to approach the effectiveness of a 50,000-unit cord blood bank.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his earlier comments. It is difficult to talk in financial terms about such issues, but with patients who do not get a transplant, there is a huge ongoing medical cost for their treatment, whereas a transplant could save that money, which could then be reinvested in the health service.

[Mr Burrowes]

We often talk about investing to save, but this is an area in which investment would save both money and lives. I shall go into that in more detail.

A report on transplantation by the UK Stem Cell Strategic Forum, ably chaired by Professor Charles Craddock, was published in December 2010 by NHS Blood and Transplant. The Minister discussed the report, which makes important recommendations, with the all-party group on the day of its publication. The report recommended, first, investing in expanding Britain’s cord blood bank capacity to 50,000 units. Those proposals have been properly costed and the costs have been balanced against effectiveness by NHS Blood and Transplant. For an investment of £50 million, spread over five years, Britain could have that 50,000-unit cord blood bank.