People living with kidney disease on home dialysis in Scotland, as in the UK as a whole, have faced significant and increasing challenges and stresses as a result of the ongoing cost of living crisis. This crisis has seen energy costs soar and consequently the utility bills of those on home dialysis rise.
Kidney Care UK believe that no one with kidney disease should have to pay for the additional energy costs of having life-saving treatment at home.
Home dialysis patients should not have to worry about whether they can afford to run their dialysis machine and to turn their heating on or turn their heating up to a temperature where their dialysis machine works properly.
There is a clear need for national home dialysis energy reimbursement policy guidelines in Scotland to ensure that all health boards have a policy in place for this purpose and that all people with kidney disease, on all modes of home dialysis, are fully, fairly, without complication and in a timely manner reimbursed for the additional energy costs of having dialysis at home.
We recommend that a national policy in Scotland should:
- Be an opt-out, not an opt-in policy to ensure that all people in Scotland on all modes of home dialysis, who wish to be reimbursed, are financially recompensed for their additional energy costs.
- Require relevant kidney health care professionals to proactively inform each individual with kidney disease, prior to commencing dialysis, about their right to be reimbursed for their home dialysis energy costs.
- Regularly review the rate of reimbursement.
- State that the process of reimbursing individuals on home dialysis should be timely, clear and straightforward.
- Reflect the number of days and hours an individual dialyses at home.
- Consider the type of dialysis and dialysis machine a person uses.
- Include the additional operational energy costs of using a home dialysis machine such as the set up and disinfectant time and for those on APD the heating of the fluid bags prior to dialysis.
- Consider the additional energy costs of maintaining the environment where home dialysis takes place.
Home Dialysis Energy Reimbursement in Scotland: read the Executive summary of Kidney Care UK's report
