Thank you to everyone who attended our webinar, celebrating the first anniversary of the organ donation law change in England. If you were not able to attend you can watch a recording of the event below.

Lord Jitesh Gadhia, NBTA ambassador, started proceedings before Millie Banerjee CBE, chair of NHSBT Board, introduced the webinar.

Dr Dale Gardiner, national clinical lead for organ donation, provided an update on how the law was being implemented in England, and how Covid-19 has affected it. Specialist nurse for organ donation Sibonokuhle Ngwenya gave her experience of being a specialist nurse and Alex Cullen, head of organ donation marketing at NHSBT, showed us the media coverage the law change had had, and also how the NHS's 'Leave them Certain' campaign was being covered.

Honorary president of the NKF and NBTA, Kirit Modi, then chaired a panel discussion, which included the three speakers and Dr Adnan Sharif, consultant nephrologist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, and Charles Kwaku-Odoi, chief officer at the Caribbean and African Health Network.

Kirit then showed a recent video to promote organ donation, which was produced by Veerayatan UK, Shrimad Rajchandra Mission Dharampur UK and Shishukunj with the support of Ragatip Music, before Lord Gadhia concluded the webinar.

Speaker profiles

Lord Jitesh Gadhia - NBTA Ambassador

Lord Jitesh Gadhia is an investment banker and businessman and has been a member of the House of Lords since September 2016. He is a board member of UK Government Investments, the centre of excellence for corporate finance and corporate governance for the UK Government, and also serves on the boards of BGL Holdings, which owns comparethemarket.com; Accord Healthcare Limited, a leading supplier of generic pharmaceuticals; and Taylor Wimpey plc, a FTSE100 housebuilder.

He was a senior managing director at Blackstone and has over 25 years' financial services experience, having also held senior positions at Barclays Capital, ABN AMRO and Baring Brothers. He has advised on a wide range of high-profile M&A transactions across developed and emerging markets. He graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in economics and attended the London Business School as a Sloan Fellow.

Lord Gadhia is appointed as a member of UK-India CEO Forum by the prime minister and serves as a trustee of the British Asian Trust, a foundation established by HRH The Prince of Wales to connect the diaspora communities with philanthropic causes across South Asia. Lord Gadhia has served as a trustee of Guy's and St Thomas's Charity and of Nesta, and is an alumnus of the Forum of Young Global Leaders, selected by the World Economic Forum.

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Millie Banerjee CBE - Chair of NHSBT Board

Millie Banerjee CBE has had a long and varied career in both the private and public sectors. She has extensive experience in corporate governance, having held a number of non-executive appointments including non-executive director of the Cabinet Office, Channel 4 and Ofcom. Millie currently chairs the NHS Integrated Care System in south-west London.

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Dr Dale Gardiner - National Clinical Lead for Organ Donation, NHSBT

Dr Dale Gardiner is the associate medical director - deceased organ donation at NHS Blood and Transplant and a consultant in adult intensive care medicine at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

His professional interests are medical ethics, the diagnosis of death and deceased organ donation. Dr Gardiner is the chair of Nottingham's Ethics of Practice Committee ans co-chair of the deceased donation working group for ELPAT. He served for four years as a member of the UK Donation Ethics Committee until its closure in 2016.

Originally from Australia, he migrated to the UK in 2002.

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Sibonokuhle 'Bonnie' Ngwenya - Specialist Nurse for Organ Donation

Born in Zimbabwe, Bonnie is the specialist requester in the Northern Organ Donation Services team and is based in Newcastle at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, having joined NHSBT in November 2019. Previously, she had worked in critical care for 14 years.

As a special requester her role is to approach families and offer the opportunity of organ and tissue donation as part of end-of-life care. Bonnie's other role is being a diversity and inclusion lead in her team. Her passion is issues relating to organ donation within BAME communities.

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Alex Cullen - Head of Organ Donation Marketing, NHSBT

Alex is passionate about engaging the public to drive positive behaviour change, pulling on her experience in the commercial sector at Ferrero and M&S. At M&S she was responsible for sustainable business initiatives including clothes recycling, reducing food waste and charity partnerships. Alex joined NHS Blood and Transplant in spring 2020 as head of organ donation marketing, where she has led on the law change awareness work and more recently, the new 'Leave them Certain' campaign.

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Kirit Modi - Honorary President of the NKF and NBTA

Kirit is a transplant recipient and has been past-chairman of the NKF. He is currently honorary president of the National BAME Transplant Alliance (NBTA), chair of the Lister Area KPA and chair of the Jain and Hindu Steering Group on organ donation (JHOD). Kirit has frequently spoken at the All-Party Parliamentary Kidney Group and written two manifestos for change; one on BAME issues and one on living kidney donation.

Kirit is a member of the project board for two NHSBT programmes, the Community Investment Scheme, and Living Transplant Initiative. Kirit received a Points of Light award in 2018 from the prime minister for his work on organ donation

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Dr Adnan Sharif - Consultant Nephrologist, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham

Dr Adnan Sharif graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2002 and underwent his medical and nephrology training in Cardiff and Birmingham, while achieving his research MD in the field of post-transplantation diabetes. He took up his consultant nephrologist post at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in 2011, with a special interest in renal transplantation but clinical responsibility in all aspects of nephrology. He has an active research focus and is currently chief investigator on a number of prospective cohort and randomised clinical trials relating in nephrology and transplantation (e.g. CAVIAR, FITNESS, AGEING and EpCOT). He is senior author on the international consensus guidelines for post-transplantation diabetes guidelines, which has been endorsed by numerous UK professional groups and societies. He has been recently appointed as co-lead for the UK Organ Donation and Transplant Research Network research stream, exploring long-term outcomes.

In addition to his clinical and research interests, he is the secretary of the non-government organisation Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) which campaigns against illegal and unethical organ procurement around the globe. The group was nominated for the Nobel Peace Price in 2016 and 2017 and receivied the Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice in 2019. He also sits on the steering committee for Give A Kidney, a registered charity that promotes non-directed altruistic kidney donation. He is on the board of trustees for Kidney Research UK and the Global Kidney Foundation. He sits on the British Transplantation Society Council representing transplant nephrology. Finally, he is a member of the National BAME Transplantation Alliance that seeks to promote blood, stem cell and organ donation from minority ethnic groups in the UK.

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Charles Kwaku-Odoi - Chief Officer at the Caribbean and African Health Network

Charles is the chief officer of the Caribbean and African Health Network Greater Manchester. He sits on local and national governance boards including Faith Network for Manchester; Macc (Manchester Community Central); Greater Manchester Voluntary Community & Social Enterprise (VCSE) Leadership Group; Coalition of Race Equality (CORE) Organisations; and governor at Manchester Foundation Trust.

Charles works to bring equity and fairness across a range of important health and wellbeing issues for people of the Caribbean and African diaspora. He is involves in work that influences the research, policy and practice agenda at local, regional and national levels. His special interests include organ and blood donation; civic and democratic participation; female genital mutilation; HIV; domestic violence; modern slavery; hate crime; and forced marriage.

Charles is a member of the NHS England Clinical Reference Group for HIV and is also a member of the HIV Prevention England Steering Group. He is passionate about engaging African faith leaders, especially pastors and organising health events such as HIV testing and organ donor recruitment in churches on Sundays.