On World Kidney Day (Thursday 9 March 2023) Kidney Care UK, the UK's leading kidney patient support charity and Severn Trent, are announcing that they have joined forces to support more than a quarter of a million people with chronic kidney disease in the heart of the UK¹.

Kidney Care UK provides a range of various support services to help the 3.5million people with kidney disease across the UK. Through the partnership with Severn Trent every kidney patient from the Bristol Channel to the Humber, and from mid-Wales to the East Midlands will be able to access help from the charity including with assistance with benefits, financial hardship grants, free counselling, free community support from the charity’s network of patient support and advocacy officers.

People with kidney disease have been disproportionately affected by the cost of living crisis, particularly when it comes to utility usage and costs. Kidney Care UK found that when it asked over 1,000 people with kidney disease about the rising costs of living, almost two thirds (60%) said this was something that they worried about all of the time. Around 5,000 people with kidney disease are on home dialysis, when a machine does the work of your kidneys and filters your blood for hours at a time. This is very energy intensive and also require a huge amount of water; as much as 7502 litres a week. That works out as the equivalent of almost 80 showers a week.

Laurie Cuthbert, Director of Fundraising, Marketing and Communications at Kidney Care UK, said: “This is an exciting partnership to transform the support that our kidney community will receive in the Severn Trent supply network. We are pleased to be working in partnership with Severn Trent to help support more of the 260,000 people living with chronic kidney disease in this region to enable them to receive support appropriate to their condition. The partnership will allow both organisations to raise greater awareness of chronic kidney disease more generally and be supported with community awareness days and drop in clinics at dialysis units across the Severn Trent network.”

Mark Grice, External Relationships Manager from Severn Trent said: “We’re absolutely committed to supporting our customers, and that includes providing extra care to those with medical conditions through our priority services register. So we’re delighted to be partnering with Kidney Care UK, as this will help us develop our knowledge and service to those with kidney disease, and make sure we’re giving them the support they needed. We know there’s thousands of our customers who need dialysis and kidney care, so we’re hoping to raise vital awareness with our teams, customers and their families so we can have a greater understanding about kidney disease and make sure we have the right things in place to best support those affected within our region.”