Kidney Diseases: Transplant Surgery
(asked on 19th January 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the waiting time for patients with significant levels of HLA antibodies to get a kidney transplant.
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for organ donation services in the United Kingdom, including management of the NHS Organ Donor Register and the transplant waiting list.
Kidney allocation in the UK is based on a national, points-based matching system, via the UK Kidney Offering Scheme, which prioritises recipients according to factors including blood group compatibility, time on the waiting list, tissue match, age, and the presence of human leukocyte antigens (HLA) antibodies, known as sensitisation. This system was updated in 2019 with the aim of reducing long waiting times. Under this scheme, the most highly sensitised patients are placed in the highest priority category to receive donor organs, as it can be hard to find suitable organs for these patients.
Patients and clinicians can access the NHSBT’s Kidney Risk Communication Tool, which provides indicative outcomes for patients with similar characteristics after joining the transplant waiting list. The Kidney Risk Communication Tool is avaiable at the following link:
https://www.odt.nhs.uk/transplantation/tools-policies-and-guidance/risk-communication-tools/
In addition, in December 2024, the Department-led Implementation Steering Group for Organ Utilisation (ISOU) made recommendations regarding high-resolution HLA-typing for organ donors and recipients to enable better matching and improve transplantation outcomes. Information on the ISOU is avaiable at the following link:
In addition, further details are avaiable in a report, at the following link: