Scottish Renal Registry
Annual report 2025

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) presents the Scottish Renal Registry (SRR) 2025 annual national report. The SRR aims to improve the care of patients with kidney failure who are treated with kidney replacement therapy (KRT) or conservative care. There are three types of KRT: Haemodialysis (HD), peritoneal dialysis (PD) and kidney transplantation. If a transplant is carried out as the first type of KRT (i.e. before the need for HD or PD) this is termed a pre-emptive transplant. Conservative care focuses on managing symptoms and maintaining quality of life without dialysis or transplantation. KRT therefore comprises all patients who are on dialysis or who have a kidney transplant in Scotland. This year the report presents data about the incidence, prevalence, distribution, modality, complications and outcomes of patients receiving KRT for kidney failure in Scotland between 1960 and 31 December 2024. It also includes data relating to kidney biopsies undertaken in Scottish Kidney Units and vaccinations in people receiving KRT treatment.

Main points

• In 2024, 615 people in Scotland (11.2 per 100,000 population) started KRT for kidney failure, with 488 starting with haemodialysis (HD), 77 starting with peritoneal dialysis, and 50 receiving a pre-emptive transplant.
• On 31 December 2024, there were 5750 patients receiving KRT for established kidney failure, of whom 3543 had a functioning kidney transplant, 2025 were being treated with haemodialysis (HD) and 182 with peritoneal dialysis (PD).
• The prevalent KRT population has grown by 56% in the past twenty years (3685 patients were receiving KRT in Scotland on 31 December 2004 compared to 5750 patients on 31 December 2024).
• A total of 237 patients who were living in Scotland received a kidney transplant during 2024. Of these transplants, 50 (21%) were pre-emptive compared with 46 (17.4%) in 2023.
• Of those transplants performed in 2023, 90.7% of grafts were functioning one year post transplant. There has been minimal variation in this figure over the last 3 years.
• The chart below demonstrates the marked increase in kidney transplantation activity in Scotland since 1960, with growth observed in both living and deceased donor procedures. Transplant numbers peaked in 2017 (94 living donor and 225 deceased donor transplants performed) but were subsequently impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2024, there were 92 living-donor transplants and 145 deceased-donor transplants. Despite the introduction of opt-out legislation in the UK deceased donor transplant rates in Scotland have fallen from a peak of 42.5 per million population (pmp) in 2017 to 26.8 pmp in 2024.

A stacked bar chart with year of transplantation on the x axis and number of transplants on the y axis. The x axis ranges from 1960 to 2024, the y axis ranges from 0 to around 320. Each bar is split, where applicable, into the following 5 categories from top to bottom: Donation after Brain Death (purple), Donation after Brain Death (light purple), Donation after Death not specified (Red), Living Donor (Green), and Not recorded (blue).

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Number of kidney transplants performed in Scotland 1960 to 2024 by donor type

Background

The SRR is within the Scottish National Audit Programme, which is part of PHS. The aim of the SRR is to improve the care of patients with kidney failure treated with KRT by systematic and comprehensive analysis, including audits of service provision, clinical management and outcomes. National clinical standards were ratified by the Scottish Renal Association and implemented in 2021 and updated in 2024, to improve patient care.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be September 2026.