A kidney consultant at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) is playing a key role in nationwide efforts to encourage more black and Asian people to join the NHS Organ Donor Register (ODR).

Dr Adnan Sharif, consultant nephrologist at QEHB, has been invited onto the All Party Parliamentary Kidney Group.

He is also actively supporting a new government campaign aimed at increasing the number of registered organ donors from Asian and African-Caribbean communities.

Dr Sharif, who is also a member of the South Asian Health Foundation, said he was representing QEHB on the Parliamentary Kidney Group, which is due to hold a summit meeting at the House of Commons on 29 November.

He said: "People from the South Asian and black communities are three to four times more likely to need an organ but three to four times less likely to be a donor.

"More than a third of people on our transplant waiting list are from the South Asian or black communities. We currently perform around 150 kidney transplants a year at the QEHB, but could easily do 200 if we had more organ donors.

"One of the key things is to secure some kind of funding to look into why South Asians, in particular, do not donate organs."

Dr Sharif said he was involved in helping to carry out global surveys among Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs to try to discover why they did not want to be organ donors.

One survey, carried out among nearly 900 Muslims around the world, revealed that while 68.5 per cent agreed with organ donation, only 39.3 per cent believed it was compatible with Islam, and only 12.7 per cent were registered donors.

NHS Blood and Transplant’s (NHSBT) new campaign, which is backed by celebrities from chef Ainsley Harriott to Aston Villa and England striker Darren Bent, will involve a series of city centre roadshows across the country.

Birmingham is to host a roadshow in the Bullring shopping centre on Saturday 3 December.

Janice Bayliss, specialist nurse for organ donation at NHSBT, said: "It is vital that more black and Asian people join the NHS Organ Donor Register. The message is quite simple - more black and Asian patients will have the opportunity to receive a life-saving transplant if more people from those communities join the register."

To join the NHS Organ Donor Register, visit the ODR website or their Facebook page, call the NHS Donor Line on 0300 123 00 00 or text ORGAN to 64118.