Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential financial implications for the NHS of the level of reliance on imported haematopoietic stem cell donations.

To ensure sustainability and resilience of the United Kingdom’s stem cell supply, the UK Stem Cell Strategic Forum recommended a 45% share for UK-to-UK donor to recipient provision. Imported stem cells have a significantly higher cost than collecting them from UK donors. Through our funding of the DHSC Stem Cell Programme we have supported recruitment of UK donors to the UK aligned stem cell registry to make progress towards the suggested target. The Department recognises that UK-to-UK provision has nonetheless continued to decline and we have launched a comprehensive review of the current system to ensure stem cell supply and use for transplantation is optimised.