Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department will a) review the ongoing data collection work of the British Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy registry and b) work with partners in the space to identify opportunities to support further development of the registry, to drive improvements in care and treatment for patients with graft-vs-host disease.

The UK Stem Cell Strategic Forum’s 2022 report, A ten-year vision for stem cell transplantation and cellular therapies, set out a number of recommendations for improving data collection for haematopoietic stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy (HSCT-CT) to drive improvements in care and treatment of HSCT-CT patients, including those with graft-vs-host disease. The report is available at the following link:

https://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/who-we-are/performance-and-strategy/stem-cell-and-advanced-cellular-therapy-strategy/

Following on from the report recommendations, the forum has established a HSCT-CT Data Commission to create an enhanced, accessible, and sustainable data model for UK HSCT-CT data, with collaboration across the British Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, the UK Aligned Registry, NHS England and the devolved counterparts, patients, academia, and industry. The Department will consider any proposals made by the commission.

The Department is also exploring how to support the report’s recommendations on data through the extension of the Department’s stem cell programme funding.