Where adults with chronic kidney disease are, and where the Kidney Patient Associations are

GP practices in England keep registers of their patients with chronic kidney disease, and the NHS counts them council by council. The National Kidney Federation publishes its Kidney Patient Associations — local charities that support kidney patients, often based at a hospital kidney unit. This puts the two side by side.

What the NKF says, and what the map shows

The National Kidney Federation says of its Kidney Patient Associations: “They are charities in their own right and they are often located in hospital renal units.” An association records working in 76 of England’s 152 council areas, where 71.5% of adults with chronic kidney disease have their GP practice.

The largest count where no association records working is Cumbria: 24,809 adults with chronic kidney disease. An association on the NKF’s page carries its name — Lancashire and South Cumbria KPA — and no association the register could be matched to records working there.

London reads as nearly empty, and the reason is the record. Royal Free Hospital Kidney Patients Association and St George's Kidney Patients Association record only “Throughout London” on the register, which places them in no single borough, and other London associations name few boroughs.

The NKF’s page also says: “No Kidney Patients Association Local To You? Contact Us To Set One Up”

Where the Kidney Patient Associations are

England’s counties and unitary authorities, split into five equal groups by the published measure of deprivation — the share of each area’s neighbourhoods in the most deprived tenth nationally.

There is no steady pattern with deprivation. Comparing the two ends: one is present in 21 of the 31 most deprived areas and 10 of the 30 least deprived. That is a finding about where Kidney Patient Associations are, not about how much help anybody gets.

By kind of council

Every county and unitary authority, by the kind of council it is. London boroughs and metropolitan boroughs are the big cities and their conurbations; counties are mostly rural and small-town England; the unitary councils are a mix, many of them cities.

See the areas where no association records working, and what that does not mean →

The associations themselves

The NKF’s page lists 53 Kidney Patient Associations, 48 of them in England and Wales. 38 are on the register for England and Wales under one number, and 3 more have two live registrations each, an older and a newer one with the same name, website and postcode: each is counted once, where either record says it works. The typical one — the median — reported income of £11,592 in its latest accounts. The NKF says: “They are charities in their own right and they are often located in hospital renal units.”

What this is for

Two readers, and they want different things.

• A kidney patient, or somebody close to one. The list is here to find the association for your kidney unit, with its own website.
• Somebody arguing about support for kidney patients. This sets the patients GP practices record beside the associations that exist, council by council, rather than asserting either.