Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent steps his Department has taken to increase the number of bone marrow donors in the UK.
The Department has provided £19 million in additional funding to improve the provision of stem cells through the work of our delivery partners, NHS Blood and Transplant and Anthony Nolan since 2011. This funding has supported a range of developments including the targeted recruitment of young male donors. To date over 75,000 young male donors have been recruited and evidence shows that these donors are approximately six times more likely to be requested to donate.