Celebrating our Bloody Amazing Kidneys with our new awareness campaign

Today is the launch of our new Bloody Amazing Kidneys campaign to help identify those most at risk of developing chronic kidney disease (CKD), and encourage them to be tested.

People often tell us that until they were diagnosed, they didn’t really know anything about their kidneys or what CKD even was. They have also told us that they want more people to know how important their kidneys are. Well, we have been listening, and we agree.

Too many people are being diagnosed when their kidneys are already damaged; we want to ensure that more people are identified as having CKD sooner, so they can take steps to prolong their kidney health for as long as possible, and ultimately, where possible, avoid needing dialysis or a transplant.

We’ve developed a campaign we think is eye catching, helps to educate people about the vital role their kidneys play, and empowers people to take control of their kidney health. We held focus groups with people with kidney disease, as well as people who are the target audience for the campaign, and their feedback helped shape the approach we have taken.

We’re proud of the campaign and we hope you are too. The Bloody Amazing Kidneys campaign both celebrates how incredible our kidneys are, filtering our blood and keeping our organs working, but also that we can lose kidney function without knowing and that’s a problem. A problem not enough people know about.

The aim of our campaign is to get people to use our new online Kidney Health Checker. Through this tool, people can find out if they might be at lower or increased risk of developing kidney disease. If an individual could be at higher risk, they will be encouraged to make an appointment with their GP.

We hope to identify more people who are at risk sooner, so that if they do have CKD stage 1, 2 or 3, they can take more control of their kidney health and make lifestyle and medication changes that may help to maintain their kidney function for as long as possible.

If an individual is at lower risk, they will be encouraged to learn more about their kidney health, share the Kidney Health Checker with their friends and family and come back to complete the Checker again in future.

Throughout the development of the campaign we heard that people didn’t know what kidney disease symptoms to look out for, so we’ve worked with YouGov to commission some research into this.

We are also providing information to help GPs talk to their patients about CKD and sharing powerful stories from people who were not told they had CKD until they were at stage 4 or even 5, or from people who didn’t realise the symptoms they were experiencing were due to their kidneys.

As well as social media advertising we will also have posters at some shopping centres and service stations, which will look like the one below.

Getting involved in our #BloodyAmazingKidneys campaign

If you are active on social media, we are sharing the campaign across our profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X and LinkedIn. Please look out for our posts with the #BloodyAmazingKidneys hashtag and if you think that any of your friends or family might be at risk, please encourage them to use the Kidney Health Checker.

You can find a range of downloadable images and accompanying text options for you to use on social media to support our #BloodyAmazingKidneys campaign be clicking through to our resources page, but the most important story to share is your own.

Influencing change

Below, you can also use our 'Email your MP tool' to let your MP know about our campaign.

You have the power to help us raise awareness of our kidneys and your voice will help us reach more people who may be at risk.

Together, let’s celebrate our Bloody Amazing Kidneys and help those who may be at risk of kidney disease to be identified and supported sooner.

If reading about our Bloody Amazing Kidneys campaign has inspired you to share your story, please get in touch.