Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the kidney transplant waiting list.

While waiting lists continue to be monitored, an assessment on the effect on the kidney transplant waiting list cannot be made until transplant units reopen. Factors will include patients wishing to be relisted at this time; patients who have experienced acute kidney injury from COVID-19 and may become dialysis-dependent; and patients who have been unable to attend an assessment clinic at this time due to the risk to their health.

NHS England, NHS Improvement and NHS Blood and Transplant have been working closely together to ensure that organ donation and transplant activity could safely continue during the COVID-19 pandemic for very urgent life-saving transplants. Deceased organ donors are being referred and a few kidney transplants are taking place most days. A joint decision by NHS England and NHS Improvement and NHS Blood and Transplant was taken to cancel the living donor matching runs following an assessment of risk. Patients waiting for a kidney transplant are able to receive dialysis as a short-term alternative treatment.