Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many organ donors there are in the UK as of March 2019.

More than 52,000 people are alive today because of a life-saving transplant, due to the selfless generosity of organ donors and their families. In 2017-18, there were 1,574 deceased donors and 1,051 living donors, leading to a total of 5,090 transplants, in the United Kingdom.

Although 80% of people support organ donation in principle, only 38% or 25 million people had registered a decision to donate on the NHS Organ Donor Register. To better reflect the view of most people, the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent Act) 2019 will be introducing a new system of consent for organ and tissue donation in England, from 2020, to help increase the number of donors. NHS Blood and Transplant will launch a 12-month communication campaign before the law comes into force, to raise awareness of the changes and the options available under the new system.