What are the key headlines from the 2024 kidney PREM?
Following the 2024 Kidney Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM), we are pleased to share the results, and we thank the 13,347 people who took part to help shape improvements in kidney care across the UK.
What is the kidney PREM?
PREM stands for Patient Reported Experience Measure. It is an annual, national survey of UK kidney patients that aims to:
- Help kidney unit teams understand how patients feel about their experience of care
- Show where improvement can be made from a patient perspective
- Provide a national picture of people’s experience of care
Patients cannot be identified by their answers and will not be contacted by their renal unit directly about the survey.
Who runs the PREM surveys?
The Kidney PREM is led by Kidney Care UK, the UK's leading kidney patient support charity, and The UK Kidney Association (UKKA), the professional organisation for the UK kidney community.
Who can participate in PREM?
The survey is open to everyone living with chronic kidney disease who is aged 17 or over and attends a UK hospital kidney centre or satellite unit. This includes people who have a working kidney transplant.
What does the survey include?
The survey was co-designed by patients, clinicians, and researchers. As well as demographic questions that cover age, gender, ethnicity and treatment, the survey includes questions relating to 13 key themes that patients have identified as being important to them. These themes are:
- Access To Renal Team
- Support
- Communication
- Patient Information
- Fluid And Diet
- Needling
- Tests
- Shared Decision Making
- Privacy And Dignity
- Scheduling And Planning
- How The Renal Team Treats You
- Transport
- The Environment
Patients are asked to rate their experience on a scale of 1-7 where 1 is the lowest and 7 is the highest. Average scores are reported for each question and for each centre.
PREM highest and lowest average scores
How does this compare to previous years?
Overall experience of care increased slightly with an average of 6.29 out of 7 in 2024, compared to 6.26 in 2023.
Privacy and Dignity remained the highest scoring theme, and scored slightly higher, averaging 6.40 out of 7 in 2024 compared to 6.38 in 2023.
Patient Information climbed to the joint highest scoring theme. In 2024 it received an average of 6.40 out of 7, compared to 6.37 in 2023.
Access remained the third highest theme with an average score of 6.38 out of 7. This score compares to 6.34 in 2023.
How the team treats you saw a big increase in score. It received an average of 6.20 out of 7 in 2024, compared with 6.11 in 2023.
Needling decreased slightly from an average score of 5.83 in 2023 to 5.82 out of 7 in 2024.
Support saw the largest increase, from 5.71 in 2023, to 5.82 out of 7 in 2024.
What comments did people make?
In 2024, 4,848 people (36% of responses) supplied written comments (compared to 4,202 in 2023). 94.3% of participants gave consent for their comments to be passed back to their kidney centre.
The 2024 Kidney PREM Comments report follows the 13 Kidney PREM themes, with How the Kidney Team Treats You receiving the highest number of comments.
How can I find my kidney centre’s results?
To see the results of all centres, you can read more in the:
If you would like to look more closely at the data for your centre or unit, this can be seen on the Kidney PREM portal where you can search the results by question, year, and hospital.
We recommend you ask your kidney team about your centre’s PREM results and find out if they are creating an action plan for improvement and how to get involved if you would like to.
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