Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of Sikhs who are on the register waiting for a transplant.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) manages transplant services across the United Kingdom, and this includes the operation of the NHS Organ Donor Register (ODR).

NHSBT does not collect data on the religion of those on the transplant waiting list. The information available on annual activity and the current waiting list is captured in the NHSBT Annual Activity Report, available on the NHSBT organ donation and transplantation website, which is available at the following link:

https://www.odt.nhs.uk/

Individuals can choose to provide details of their faith or beliefs when registering on the ODR via the NHSBT webpage. Some sources of registration onto the ODR do not have an option to record or report religion. As of 29 April 2025, where religion was reported, there were:

• 23,629 registrations on the ODR which identified as Sikh, comprising of 11,684 Opt-In registrations and 11,945 Opt-out registrations; and
• 43,562 registrations on the ODR which identified as Jewish, comprising of 9,499 Opt-in registrations and 34,063 Opt-out registrations.