Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Kidney Research UK's recent report entitled Kidney Disease: a UK public health emergency, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of available data on the rate at which patients progress through the stages of chronic kidney disease.

NHS England, through its Renal Services Transformation Programme (RSTP) and regional renal clinical networks, is progressing a series of programmes to provide better and more joined-up care across care settings, reducing health inequalities, and focussing on prevention and timely intervention through streamlined patient pathways to address the management of deteriorating kidney disease. By supporting prevention and early intervention, the need for more costly late-stage treatments will be reduced.

The RSTP launched a renal toolkit earlier this year for use by local National Health Service systems, which outlines principles to support improved management of patients identified with chronic kidney disease (CKD) throughout their patient journey. The RSTP is also working closely with NHS England’s regional renal clinical networks to review this toolkit and to work with local partners to develop transformation programmes that will reduce the number of patients progressing through various stages of CKD. Regional renal clinical networks have already prioritised CKD diagnosis and prevention of progression within their core function.

Paediatric renal services are commissioned by NHS England and overseen by the Paediatric Renal Services Clinical Reference Group (CRG). The CRG takes responsibility for setting policy, a national service specification and quality standards with which commissioned services should comply. The CRG’s work programme has several core elements, including revision of the Paediatric Renal Services Service Specification, which will improve oversight of paediatric kidney care and the transition of care to adult services. The CRG works collaboratively with the Adult Renal Services CRG and the RSTP.