Bad medicine: chronic kidney disease

There was a time when the NHS had more money than sense. So in 2006 chronic kidney disease was added to the NHS’s quality and outcomes framework (QOF). Most general practitioners had no idea why this was. We assumed it was a way to identify those with kidney disease and to modify progression. However, we were then told that a staggering 10% of the population had the disease, even though most GPs have only a handful of patients with end stage renal failure. Were we really going to treat so many patients to prevent an extremely …