Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to include differing (a) faith and (b) cultural perspectives in its consultation on opt-out organ donation.

The Department took a number of steps to raise awareness of the consultation on organ and tissue donation consent amongst different communities, which received over 17,000 responses.

- The consultation was publicised across various black and Asian media platforms, through Ministerial interviews on both national and regional black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) radio shows and editorials in prominent BAME publications, through television networks and editorials from faith leaders in popular religious publications;

- I wrote to faith leaders directly to encourage them to promote the consultation; and

- More widely, the consultation was promoted on social media and the Department worked with a number of organ donation-related organisations to highlight the consultation via their respective platforms.

In addition, NHS Blood and Transplant commissioned Ipsos MORI to conduct 26 focus groups across England with representatives from a number of BAME groups and faith groups. More recently, on 9 May, I hosted an event with faith leaders to discuss barriers to organ donation and to explore what more can be done to engage with the different communities.