Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has held with medical practitioners on preventing patients from travelling to China for organ transplants.

There have been no such discussions.

Patients cannot be prevented from travelling to China but should be aware of the risks, including possible prosecution, poor donor care, poorer graft survival, infection and in extreme cases, death.

The Government supports the establishment of lawful and ethical organ donation and transplantation programmes to address the world-wide shortage of organs for transplant and a range of action to discourage organ trafficking, transplant tourism and commercialism. The United Kingdom formally signed the Council of Europe Convention Against Trafficking in Human Organs on 25 March 2015 and has laws and protocols in place to ensure well-regulated practice to prevent organ trafficking in the UK.