Most chronic kidney patients can be treated in primary care

The focus of renal medicine needs to shift from treatment centred on dialysis and transplantation in secondary care towards more generalised intervention in primary care, a conference in Edinburgh has heard.

Speaking at a meeting on renal medicine organised by the Royal College of Physicians of Scotland, John Harty, a consultant physician at Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry, County Down, said that changes in GPs’ contracts in the United Kingdom meant that more patients with stage 4 kidney disease (severe decrease in glomerular filtration rate) were being identified. But he cautioned against assuming that this was …