Run by patients for patients, the National Kidney Federation promotes the interests of kidney patients throughout the UK to the government and media. It campaigns for improvements to renal provision and treatment and provides national support services through its helpline and advocacy, information leaflets and quarterly reports. The NKF continues to forge closer relationships with other kidney charities to ensure that resource is used effectively and that different groups don’t keep reinventing the same wheel. A large number of kidney patients come from ethnic backgrounds and this presents separate difficulties which have to be faced, translation of leaflets, involvement in the patient organisations, shortages of donor organs, cultural views toward transplantation. The Kidney Patient Associations (KPAs) themselves need strengthening and in the coming years the NKF intends to focus on providing real help to these groups of patients who are struggling to maintain their local service within their own units.