Nightlife

A randomised control trial to assess the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of thrice-weekly, in centre nocturnal dialysis.

Key aim:

People who choose to do more dialysis may feel better and live longer for other, completely unrelated reasons. The only way to know for sure is to compare longer treatment times with conventional treatment schedules in a well-designed clinical trial.

Kidney dialysis is a life saving treatment for patients with kidney failure with around 25,000 patients receiving in centre dialysis. Most set dialysis appointments last between 4 hours, 3 times a week not including travel. This is mainly because it is convenient for the hospital, not the patient.

Studies show being treated with dialysis machines for longer has benefits, but medical teams struggle to schedule more flexible or extended dialysis schedules due to the volume of patients and finite numbers of machines and staff.

This project has been designed to help patients and medical teams to offer overnight dialysis to see if it improves the quality of life of patients with kidney disease whilst also being more cost-effective than conventional care.

This project is now closed to recruitment, however due to the success of the Manchester unit and the benefits for patients in terms of improved energy levels, quality of life and productivity, the NHS has agreed to fund a nocturnal unit.

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