Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Rural Health, Senator Nash, representing the Minister for Health. Will the minister please advise the Senate what the government is doing to increase rates of organ and tissue donation and transplantation in Australia?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As many would know, the government certainly believes that organ and tissue donation is a critical, life-saving issue. In the 2015-16 budget we committed $10.2 million over two years to increase rates of living and deceased organ and tissue donation in four targeted areas.

First, we will implement better matching of donors and recipients. We are going to replace the current National Organ Matching System with a new, automated Australian organ-matching system that will also extend support for matching liver, heart and lung transplantation. We are going to move to a one-stop online registration process. We are going to make the process to register as simple and as easy as we possibly can.

We are going to work to try to increase the consent rates of families for their loved ones to be donors. A targeted hospital improvement program will build capacity in hospitals so they can better support families to make this important decision. When only one per cent of people die in the tragic circumstances where an organ can be donated, we need to make sure that families are aware of their loved ones' decisions.

We will also extend the Living Organ Donor Program to increase the leave for living organ donors from six to nine weeks. We want to reduce the financial burden of recovery from these amazing Australians, who generously donate a kidney or part of their liver to save another person's life.

There have been many different views put forward in relation to how we go forward as a sector and with stakeholders, but we all agree that the rates of organ and tissue donation can be higher and that it was absolute common sense to review whether we can do better.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Will the minister please inform the Senate of Ernst & Young's findings in relation to the national program for organ and tissue donation and transplantation?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While the review found that the existing strategy was sound, it also found that there is significant room for improvement, from community awareness, consent to donation and clinical practice within hospitals to the role of the health system at all levels. The review also endorsed the government's strategy to move to the online registration process.

The review made 24 recommendations, that the government has welcomed, on many aspects of organ and tissue donation, particularly around areas of transparency, accountability and governance. The government definitely supports the need for additional effort on stronger performance across the national program for organ and tissue donation and transplantation, and we are now considering those recommendations very closely as to which ones should be the top priorities.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Can the minister further advise the Senate of the importance of the new registration process?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The new registration process is going to be vitally important in making a difference to those online donor rates—those online donor registrations.

The registration process will now be a one-stop online process. Currently, the process is two-step, where people go online but then they also have to do a paperwork part of that process. That is stopping many Australians from registering. We have around 6.1 million Australians who registered their intent to be a donor and only 1.8 million of those have completed the process to become a donor. So it is vitally important that we get this faster, simpler process up and running.

It will clearly show the intent of the donor and it will also trigger that conversation with family and with loved ones that we know is so important when it comes to that moment when organ donation needs to be supported by family members and loved ones.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.