Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of hospitals in England that have at least one embedded specialist nurse dealing specifically with organ donation.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) has a network of specialist nurses for organ donation throughout the United Kingdom who are an integral part of the donation process and provide support to potential donor families.

All hospitals in England with donation potential have input and support from specialist nurses for organ donation. There are currently 98 hospitals in England that have specialist nurses for organ donation embedded within them. In addition NHSBT is recruiting specialist nurses to a further seven hospitals, making a total of 105. The level of support and resource allocated varies according to the donation potential for the individual hospital and the number of hospitals in each acute trust. The larger trusts will have a larger team allocated to them. The specialist nurses work to provide support to all hospitals within the trust, adopting a hub and spoke approach.

These specialist nurses provide an on call service 24 hours, seven days a week, to ensure each donor referral is responded to in a timely manner and facilitated.