Is lack of suitable housing a barrier to home-based dialysis therapy for patients with end-stage renal disease? A cohort study

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether inadequate housing is the main barrier to the provision of home dialysis treatment. DESIGN: Prospective observational study. PARTICIPANTS: All patients attending a predialysis clinic between 2006 and 2009 deemed medically suitable for home dialysis and not active on the preemptive transplant list. SETTING: A predialysis clinic in a London teaching hospital. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Assessment of patient's accommodation for suitability for home-based dialysis using departmental guidelines and the Government's Housing Health and Safety Rating System regulations 2005. RESULTS: A lack of adequate housing prohibited the provision of home haemodialysis to all but one of these patients. Moreover, only 29% of homes assessed were suitable for peritoneal dialysis, despite the lower spatial demands of this form of renal replacement therapy. In addition to the specific requirements of dialysis, we also found that only 33% of the homes visited fulfilled the minimum standard of housing as defined in the Government's Decent Homes Standard, with multiple specific hazards identified across the properties. CONCLUSIONS: This study illustrates that the lack of suitable housing is a major barrier to the provision of home-based dialysis and underscores the need for this to be addressed urgently at both the central government and local authority levels. We suggest that it should be considered as a major priority to rehouse medically suitable patients with a view to enabling home-based therapy.