UK Renal Registry 12th Annual Report (December 2009): chapter 2: introduction

The 12th Annual Report from the UK Renal Registry (UKRR) contains analyses of data submitted from every centre providing clinical supervision of renal replacement therapy (RRT) in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and (via the Scottish Renal Registry) Scotland. The data are largely extracted direct from clinical information systems used for direct clinical care [1] and the inclusion of laboratory data permit analyses not only of the incidence, prevalence, and outcomes of RRT in the UK, but also the achievement of clinical performance measures as defined by the Renal Association's Clinical Practice Guidelines. The UKRR remains unique amongst renal registries in not only publishing centre-specific analyses of outcomes, including laboratory variables but also including age-adjusted survival statistics. Data are still incomplete, particularly on those data items that require clinical input, including primary renal disease and comorbidity at the start of RRT, and these deficiencies limit the Registry's ability to perform analyses that are fully adjusted for case-mix. In England, the issue of a Dataset Change Notice [2] has made submission of a defined dataset on each patient undergoing RRT mandatory, but how quickly this will accelerate improvement in data returns remains to be determined.