Hospitals may make more money by keeping patients on dialysis than by transplanting kidneys, report says

A new strategy to increase kidney transplantations from live donors has been launched by NHS Blood and Transplant.

Although the number of such transplantations has almost tripled in the past decade to 1061 in 2009-10, and outcomes are better than for transplants from deceased donors, more could be done, the strategy says. One aim is to even out provision across the country by improving commissioning and funding arrangements. There is, for example, no national tariff that covers the complete pathway for living transplants, while there is such a tariff for kidney dialysis.

Over five years living donor transplantations …