Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will carry out a review of NHS patient engagement processes in order to (a) ensure parents and guardians are fully supported in deciding whether to make organs available for donation when a child dies and (b) identify ways to raise public awareness of the benefits of organ donation.

NHS Blood and Transplant’s ‘UK Paediatric and Neonatal Deceased Donation: A Strategic Plan by the Paediatric Subgroup of the National Organ Donation Committee’ was published in March 2019, which is available at the following link:

https://nhsbtdbe.blob.core.windows.net/umbraco-assets-corp/15402/paediatric-and-neonatal-deceased-donation-strategy-final.pdf

The plan includes increased support for families throughout the donation process, additional dedicated training and support for clinical staff caring for paediatric patients, the development of new screening and assessment processes and continued work with coroners and the Procurators Fiscal to enable more donations to proceed.

As of September 2020, blood, organ and stem cell donation was added to the National Curriculum for all secondary schools in England. In addition, NHS Blood and Transplant deliver year-round public engagement activity, which aligns with events such as Organ Donation Week to raise awareness.