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 help increase the number of people on the bone marrow donors register.

The UK aligned stem cell registry, a national register managed collaboratively by Anthony Nolan, DKMS UK, NHS Blood and Transplant, and the Welsh Bone Marrow Donor Registry, has over 2.3 million potential stem cell donors registered. The British Bone Marrow Registry is now known as the NHS Stem Cell Donor Registry, and forms part of the UK aligned stem cell registry.

The Department is taking action to increase the number of people on the UK aligned stem cell registry by funding the Stem Cell Programme, with £2.4 million for the period from 2022 to 2025. The programme is being delivered by NHS Blood and Transplant and Anthony Nolan. It aims to enhance the resilience of the United Kingdom’s stem cell supply by strategically recruiting donors to the UK aligned stem cell registry. It focuses on recruiting those most likely to donate and on addressing health disparities through targeted campaigns, with a focus on ethnic minority communities. By increasing the pool of potential donors, the programme seeks to improve the availability of matches in the UK, ultimately reducing waiting times for patients in need of stem cell treatment. Funding to both organisations has been extended by one year to 2025/26.