Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Merron on 9 October (HL Deb col 1995), what consideration the working group is giving to apheresis capacity for sickle cell patients and how sickle cell disease is represented among its membership.

The Department has established an Apheresis Working Group to determine the scale of the challenge with apheresis capacity in the National Health Service, and to develop solutions. Apheresis is used for a wide range of purposes, including to harvest stem cells for transplant and for red cell exchange for sickle cell disorder patients. As apheresis is used for a wide range of treatments, the group is focussed on examining apheresis’ capacity to cover the broad range of uses within the NHS. As such, the group membership includes commissioning bodies and subject matter experts who can assess the full range of apheresis uses. The group is currently in the evidence gathering phase, and seeks to publish a report towards the end of the first part of 2025.