Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to encourage more people to become organ donors.

Currently there are over 6,500 people on the United Kingdom national transplant waiting list. Most people are waiting for a kidney. The figure changes constantly as people join and leave the list. Each year around 5,000 people die in circumstances where their organs can be donated. Our aim is to maximise the number of people who can benefit from a transplant.

A seven year UK-wide organ donation and transplantation strategy was jointly published by the four UK health ministers and NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) in July 2013. The strategy aims to increase consent rates, encourage people to be proud to donate and to make the UK system comparable with the best of the world. 2015/16 saw the highest ever deceased donor rate in the UK with 1,364 deceased donors resulting in 3,529 transplants. A further 3,779 patients had their sight restored through a cornea transplant and there were 1,075 living donors, most donating a kidney.

NHSBT run regular awareness raising campaigns and introduced a new Organ Donation Register (ODR) system making it easier for people to record their wishes about donation. NHSBT works collaboratively with a number of partners in the private, public and third sectors to promote organ donation. People can add their name to the ODR via Government owned channels such as applying for a driving licence and paying car tax online.

On 1 December 2015, Wales introduced deemed consent (opt-out) for organ and tissue donation. We will monitor closely how these changes in legislation in Wales affect donation rates.