Our performance against the year’s objectives
Over the past year we have built on existing partnerships and created new ones across the kidney community and beyond, striving to maximise opportunities to increase the pace and impact of positive change on kidney health.
Rally together for change
Achieved
Objective: Raise £11.68 million
- Generated £14.49 million through a range of income streams including our Transforming Treatments campaign, increased investment in engaging new potential supporters, gala dinners and new charity of the year partnerships.
Objective: Continue to build Team Kidney by attracting more people to support our cause including financial supporters, patient advocates, and volunteers.
- Increased Kidney Voices for Research membership to 1,800 kidney patients and family members. Added over 7,000 new supporters to our kidney community through our health check campaign. 8,558 people made regular monthly donations and 4,700 people played our lottery.
Objective: Increase awareness raising activity to people at higher risk of kidney disease.
- Peer educator involvement in landmark study in Lancashire and projects in Scotland and Wales. Growth of community ambassador network.
Partially achieved
Objective: Develop relationships with key partners to support our goal to prevent kidney disease.
- Increased engagement with health charities, patient groups and pharmaceutical companies
Strive for excellence
Achieved
Objective: Continue the development of our governance, people and culture.
- Staff and volunteer surveys completed. Diversity and Inclusion training.
- Completed a Trustee board effectiveness review and implemented recommendations.
- Created a group of diversity champions.
- Increased training and personal development available to staff, including Lean Six Sigma (continuous improvement) training, and qualification for six staff members.
Partially achieved
Objective: Develop our financial strategy to ensure financial sustainability for the future.
- Work is progressing. The decision was made to move our investments into a sustainable multi asset fund, and the transfer implemented. A new reserves policy was agreed.
Objective: Take the next steps in our digital transformation including upgrading our finance and supporter data management systems to improve efficiency.
- Digital transformation work is progressing.
Objective: Review, streamline and simplify processes to make it easier for researchers to apply for funding.
- Work is progressing, with some changes implemented and more in the pipeline.
Accelerate discovery
Achieved
Objective: Increase our spending on research in all areas including competitions. Spend £9.6m on charitable activities.
- Invested £11.62m in our charitable activities; £9.87m specifically on new research.
- Launched Kidney Beam for children – a study to evaluate the impact of online exercise classes for young kidney transplant patients, building on the support the charity has given to the development of the Kidney Beam platform for adults.
- Funded the development of a urine test to identify rejection in kidney transplant patients early and initiate treatment sooner.
Objective: Drive innovation and collaboration in our priority research areas: transforming treatments, health inequalities and multiple health conditions.
- Established new research networks for dialysis and renal health data. 9
- Re-energised partnerships with Diabetes UK, British Heart Foundation and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
- Held events to drive innovation and collaboration, including Industry Day 2022 and our annual researchers’ meeting.
- Supported projects addressing inequalities and increasing representation in research.
- Funded ground-breaking research showing it is possible to change the blood type of donor kidneys.
Partially achieved
Objective: Develop plans to maximise the potential of the NURTuRE biobank. Add to this resource by supporting further development, eg new AKI cohort.
- Completed recruitment of CKD patients donating their samples, continued to recruit INS patients and progressed plans to collect samples from people with AKI.
- Profile building continued with two baseline papers in preparation and a new website in development.
- Further development of plans to manage and optimise the collated data for the benefit of patients.
Make it count
Achieved
Objective: Raise awareness of kidney disease and kidney research among parliamentarians. Gain greater support for research funding from government bodies and the NHS.
- Increased our evidence base by publishing our Scottish CKD report and developing our mental health report and cost of kidney disease report.
- Responded to government, committee and political party consultations, attended relevant All-Party Parliamentary Group meetings and parliamentary receptions.
- One-to-one engagement with MPs and MSPs by staff and supporters.
- Helped assess the clinical and cost effectiveness of NHS services and overturn a decision by NICE so a treatment for those who contract Covid remains available to kidney patients.
- Worked with the Association of Medical Research Charities to give evidence on research funding
- Obtained Wales NHS funding for our diabetes peer education project.
- Established the Kidney Policy Forum. 9 Celebrated our involvement in the development of a new treatment for kidney patients with anaemia.
Partially achieved
Objective: Establish a programme that will make a step change in enabling researchers to make every one of their discoveries count.
- Started a programme to upskill researchers around issues including intellectual property (IP) and commercialisation of research.
Objective: Launch a health economics report on the cost of kidney disease to highlight the need to accelerate improvements and bring about change.
- Majority of scoping, analysis and consultation preparation completed in 2022/2023. Final report published June 2023.
Annual report 2022-23
Read more from our annual report to find out how we're investing in research, awareness, and education to accelerate growth that will bring benefit to patients both now and in the future.