Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the underutilisation of cord blood haematopoietic stem cell units in the UK; and what steps he is taking to develop a national strategy for their use within clinical pathways.

The United Kingdom maintains a national cord blood inventory through NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) and Anthony Nolan's Cord Blood Banks, ensuring that cord blood remains available as an important treatment option for patients where it is clinically indicated. NHSBT and Anthony Nolan continue to monitor developments in clinical practice and emerging evidence relating to cord blood transplantation, in the face of a significant international decline in clinical demand for cord blood, and a reduced demand in the United Kingdom as alternative clinical options such as haplo-identical transplant have been preferred by many clinicians in the last five years. NHSBT and Anthony Nolan are running a number of initiatives to help support the UK transplant community to encourage use of cord blood. These initiatives include cord blood selection advisory panels, cord thawing and transfusion support programmes, and annual Cord Blood Residential workshops for clinicians which are all supported by the UK Cord Blood Working Group.

The Department has launched a comprehensive review of the current system to ensure stem cell supply and use for transplantation is optimised. Variation in selection of stem cell source across transplant centres will be considered as part of the review.