'Better focus' for renal patients

It's hoped more donor organs will become available

Kidney services in Wales will be run by a single body in future in a move campaigners say will cut bureaucracy and improve access to dialysis.

Welsh health minister Edwina Hart is setting up an All-Wales Renal Network to oversee treatment.

She said it would ensure improvements were consistent across Wales following her announcement in June of extra money to expand dialysis programmes.

Campaigners said services had been too fragmented in the past.

The All-Wales Renal Network will bring together bodies in the north and south.

"Work is already under way with local communities to deliver a programme of dialysis expansion across Wales and I have already agreed an additional investment of £2.5m for 2008/9 and £6.8m for 2009/10," she said.

We've been campaigning for more efficiency in the NHS and today someone has listened Roy Thomas, Kidney Wales Foundation

She said the assembly government would also continue its work with the Kidney Wales Foundation to encourage more people to sign up to the organ donor register.

"We have also held a public consultation on changing the legislation on organ donation and we are currently considering the responses and options available," she said.

Roy Thomas chairman of the Kidney Wales Foundation said a single service across Wales should give a better focus for kidney patients.

"We need more dialysis units, especially in rural Wales, and the minister has understood that," he said.

"We have been campaigning now for two years to get to that position.

"We've also been campaigning for more efficiency in the NHS and today someone has listened.

"There are so many layers of bureaucracy we today have got one network looking after the whole of Wales where as we had committees and sub-committees and other committees."