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The National Kidney Federation (NKF) are proud to be the largest kidney patient charity in the UK. Run by kidney patients, for kidney patients. The National Kidney Federation was founded in 1978 after independent charities, more commonly known now as Kidney Patient Associations (KPAs), after they realised that they needed a national organisation to fight their cause and extreme demand to improve renal provision.
The NKF Executive Committee is made up of patients and carers who generally belong to Kidney Patient Associations.For over 45 years, the aim of the charity continues to have two main roles:
With an estimated 3.5 million people living in the UK with kidney disease (this represents people at stages 3 to 5 CKD), the National Kidney Federation are a lifeline of support and hope to patients and families. They work tirelessly to persuade the Government, the Department of Health, NHS Blood and Transplant, and the NHS to provide better treatment and services for kidney patients.It is vital that we continue to offer our support to those in need as well as to continue to pull the lever of change and transformation within the renal world.The Support of the Kidney Community We can’t do the work and continue to support and change kidney patients' lives without you.The NKF raises money directly from the public and is also supported in its work by the renal industries surrounding and supporting care of the disease. It exists solely because of the generosity of those sponsors and supporters; money is always tight, and much more could be done with greater sponsorship.To donate please click here. Your help means everything to patients and loved ones who use our services as a lifeline of support.Patient Support Services the NKF Provide…NKF Freephone HelplineThe NKF Freephone Helpline is the only free UK Helpline service dedicated to kidney patients, their families, renal units and health care professionals. The Helpline is manned by two fully trained, experienced advisers.The NKF Helpline is available Monday to Thursday 08:30 am - 5:00 pm and Friday 8.30 am – 12.30 pm on 0800 169 09 36 or email [email protected].NKF Helpline Information Leaflets Whether an individual may be newly diagnosed with kidney disease or a renal unit requires an amount of NKF Helpline anaemia information leaflets, our Helpline can support you. We can create and distribute hundreds of Helpline medical information leaflets specifically for kidney patients throughout the UK, from travel insurance, dialysis, dietary advice, transplantation and living donors. Simply call the NKF Helpline on 0800 169 09 36 and they can download the information for you and post that very same day or visit: www.kidney.org.uk/Pages/Category/online-help-resourcesNKF Home Dialysis Peer Support Service The free National Home Dialysis Peer Support Service was launched in 2021 and has been a great success in providing a service for those on home dialysis, people considering at home dialysis treatment and family and carers of people on or considering home dialysis. The service enables patients to be matched with a peer supporter who have experienced home dialysis themselves or are a carer of someone on home dialysis. Covering the whole of the UK, our trained peers are available to give support over the phone, through a Zoom call and face-to-face discussions. Our Website This website is viewed by thousands of patients, carers, renal professionals, doctors and nurses worldwide every year.If the subject is renal, the answer is on this fantastic website. Above all the website has brought patients real information about their condition, and it has put patients in touch with our Helpline Advisers. It has given kidney consultants, doctors and nurses a chance to talk with each other, and with patients, about issues and concerns that before the website they may have been completely unaware of.Annual NKF EventsThe National Kidney Federation organise an annual National Patient’s Event which more than 250 renal patients attend over a two-day period. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the UK and World in 2020, for the past two years, the annual event has been re-adjusted to be an online event.In 2023, the Patient’s Event resumed as usual, a special occasion. It unites patients and renal industries to network and to use their voice and showcase to the NKF where the shortcomings are in renal provision. Frequently, Government ministers and healthcare professionals are on hand to hear for themselves the issues, but above all it is an opportunity for a thorough exchange of views.KPA DayThe KPA Day is an annual event which takes place to share the opportunity of best practice. Campaigning for ChangeThe National Kidney Federation lobbied for, and got, an All Party Parliamentary Kidney Group of over 70 MPs and Lords established in Parliament and they feed that group on a day to day basis with the information needed to keep renal disease in the eye of the Government.The NKF have produced five manifestos along with the APPKG including:
The National Kidney Federation formed with others a new charity The Kidney Alliance, and then worked with other members of it to create a dialysis version of a National Service Framework (NSF) of their own. Then, they launched this document within the House of Commons in front of the very Ministers who had rejected the idea of an NSF. The Government took only 4 weeks from that day, to reverse their decision and announce a Renal NSF of their own. Quite a victory for any group, let alone a group of very ill patients! Part 1 of the Renal NSF was published by the Department of Health on 14 January 2004 with part 2 following in February 2005. The NKF provided considerable support and input to the Department of Health during the preparation of these two vital documents.Even today they continue to have a dialogue with Ministers and the Department of Health and campaign whenever necessary to support kidney patients and their families across the UK.For more information on the All-Party Parliamentary Kidney Group please visit here.
The NKF also have also campaigned on:
Kidney Patient Associations (KPAs)
Currently there are 48 Kidney Patient Associations (KPAs) and they come together as the controlling Council of the National Kidney Federation, the KPAs are both the ears and the eyes of the NKF and its controlling force.Kidney Patient Associations (KPAs) provide support for kidney patients on a local level. They are charities in their own right and they are often located in hospital renal units.
The main purpose of a KPA is to support patients on a local scale either pre-dialysis, dialysis or transplanted and they are also there to support their families and loved ones in any way they can.KPAs can offer varied support but could include anything from the below:
Our ImpactOur Impact Report for 2022 is now available. Our report showcases all the hard work and achievements we have made over the last year for the millions of people living with kidney disease. You can take a read of the Impact Report here.Plans for the Future The NKF continues to forge closer relationships with other kidney charities to ensure that resource is used effectively and that different groups don’t keep reinventing the same wheel.A large number of kidney patients come from ethnic backgrounds and this presents separate difficulties which have to be faced, translation of leaflets, involvement in the patient organisations, shortages of donor organs, cultural views toward transplantation.
The Kidney Patient Associations (KPAs) themselves need strengthening and in the coming years the NKF intends to focus on providing real help to these groups of patients who are struggling to maintain their local service within their own units.
In Europe the Renal Patients organisation is called the European Kidney Patients Federation (EKPF), and the NKF is already a full and active member taking the fight for better treatment and resource both to the European Parliament and to individual countries as necessary and bringing back to the UK the successful ideas practiced abroad.
The National Kidney Federation is constantly aware that the earlier renal disease can be detected and treated, the better the outcome for the patient. Much effort is to be put in, to try to identify these groups at high risk who are unaware of the danger to their health and the possibility of them entering End Stage Renal Failure.
Whilst there clearly have been many advances in renal care since the foundation of the NKF in 1978, it remains true that the period started with a shortage of renal provision and resource and ends in exactly the same plight. The NKF hopes passionately that over the coming years we will see real strides being made in adequate provision of health care to the current estimated 3.5 million CKD patients in the UK (this represents people at stages 3 to 5 CKD).
Click here to see the Policy Statements of the NKF
Click here to read of a copy our Memorandum and Articles of Association