Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase the availability of donor organs.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is the organisation responsible for organ donation in the United Kingdom. NHSBT is working to improve the availability of donor organs by encouraging more people to record their wishes on the Organ Donor Register. Current activity includes:

• high profile year-round campaigns including Organ Donation Week, World Sight Day, and World Kidney Day, in partnership with a wide range of charities and community groups;
• year-round national and regional media and public relations, focusing particularly on the need for more black and Asian organ donors to reduce current inequities in access to transplants;
• national networking with trusted community organisations such as the National BAME Transplant Alliance, to support trusted leaders with expertise in organ donation to deliver culturally and religiously sensitive messaging;
• funding a Community Grants Programme to drive awareness of the importance and benefits of organ donation and addressing barriers to donation; and
• the Organ Donation Joint Working Group, formed jointly between NHSBT and the Department, will provide recommendations to improve the organ donation consent rates, increase societal action for organ donation, and increase the pool of potential donors. This report is due to be published this autumn.