Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people died while on waiting lists for organ donation in each year since 2011.

A seven year United Kingdom-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.

We have invested significantly in more specialist nurses, in better retrieval arrangements and in strengthening referral procedures between intensive care and the transplant programme to help ensure that all potential donors are identified and that families are supported through this very difficult time.

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.

Our aim is to maximise the number of people who can benefit from a transplant and 2015/16 saw the highest ever deceased donor rate in the UK with 1,364 deceased donors resulting in 3,529 transplants.

Information on the number of people who die while on waiting lists for organ donation is given in the annual NHSBT Transplant Activity Report in Section 1 of the report ‘Summary of Donor and Transplant Activity’. An archive of these reports can be found at:

www.odt.nhs.uk/uk-transplant-registry/annual-activity-report/