§ Mr. David Youngasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is his assessment of the number of patients awaiting transplant of organs; if he will separate this figure into categories of operation; and what is the policy of his Department towards the development of facilities for such transplants.
§ Dr. VaughanThe number of patients in the United Kingdom who were awaiting kidney transplants on 30 June 1981 was 2,079. Waiting list figures for corneal grafts are not collected centrally. Two patients at Papworth hospital and five at Harefeld hospital have been accepted and are waiting for a heart transplant. Liver and pancreas transplantations are not as yet widely established 485W procedures. Very few such operations are carried out at present and there are no central figures for patients awaiting them.
The Government are anxious to encourage the transplantation of kidneys and corneas. The main constraint at present is the availability of sufficient suitable organs. I hope that the new donor cards which I introduced recently will help to increase the numbers becoming available. So far as heart transplants are concerned, the current programme at Papworth hospital is, as my right hon. Friend stated in his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) on 13 March 1980, intended to provide a basis for assessment and the determination of future policy.—[Vol. 980, c. 674–75.] During this assessment period we do not expect health authorities to give priority to heart transplantation programmes elsewhere.