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Transplant Surgery

Question for Department of Health and Social Care

UIN HL8237, tabled on 4 June 2018

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider requiring hospitals in the UK to register patients who have obtained organ transplants overseas.

Answered on

18 June 2018

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for organ donation in the United Kingdom. To monitor the number of patients who have undergone transplant surgery abroad, NHSBT contacts transplant and satellite units to ask them for details of patients who have been transplanted abroad and have then come to the UK for follow-up.

Some of these patients lived in the UK and travelled overseas specifically for the transplant, others may have been living overseas when they have their transplant. NHSBT is unable to distinguish which scenario applies to any recipient.

UK hospitals are only able to record information about patients that received transplants abroad when they come into contact with the patient for follow up care.

The Government has no current plans to make collecting such information a legal requirement.