Scottish Renal Registry
Annual report 2026

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) presents the Scottish Renal Registry (SRR) 2026 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 by systematic and comprehensive analysis, including audits of service provision, clinical management and outcomes.

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 quality of life without KRT. 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 2025, as well as kidney biopsies undertaken in Scotland and vaccinations in people receiving KRT treatment.

Main points

• In 2025, 630 people in Scotland started KRT for kidney failure for the first time. This is 11.4 people for every 100,000 people in the population.
• On 31 December 2025, 5,909 people in Scotland were receiving KRT for established kidney failure, of whom 3,633 people had a functioning kidney transplant, 2,034 people were receiving HD in a dialysis unit, 178 people were receiving PD, and 64 people were receiving HD at home. This means that people on home therapies (PD and HD at home) account for 11% of all dialysis treatments, which is below the UK Kidney Association (UKKA) target of 20%.
• In 2025, 238 people living in Scotland received a kidney transplant. Of these, 56 people (23.5%) received their transplant before dialysis was needed. Receiving a transplant before dialysis is the optimal treatment pathway.
• Over the past twenty years, the Scottish population has increased by 9.1%, whilst the number of people receiving KRT has increased by 52.5%. This means that the KRT population increased 5.8 times faster than the population of Scotland in this timeframe. There were 3,874 people receiving KRT in Scotland on 31 December 2005, compared to 5,909 people on 31 December 2025.
• While people living in the most deprived areas are more likely to start KRT, the chart below demonstrates they are less likely to receive a kidney transplant before needing dialysis and less likely to join the kidney transplant waiting list pre-emptively. They are less likely to ever be added to the kidney transplant waiting list. These figures show an association with deprivation and do not account for other factors that may influence access to the kidney transplant waiting list. This merits further investigation in future reports to understand the complexities of access to transplantation for this patient group. Deprivation is measured using the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), where quintile 1 represents the most deprived areas and quintile 5 the least deprived areas.

Stacked bar chart showing activation on the kidney transplant waiting list by number of incident KRT patients between 2021 and 2024 by SIMD quintile. There were substantially more KRT patients in the most deprived quintile (SIMD1) than in the least deprived quintile (SIMD5). Patients in SIMD 1 were less likely to be activated on the transplant waiting list or receive a pre-emptive transplant that patients in SIMD 5.

Close

Timing of activation on kidney transplant waiting list for patients who started KRT from 2021 to 2023, by level of deprivation (SIMD quintile)

Further information

The next release of this publication will be November 2027.