An “external service improvement review” will inform the planned expansion of the living kidney donor transplant programme at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin.
The external review was conducted by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) in May, according to minutes of Beaumont’s clinical governance, performance and risk committee (CGP&RC) meeting in June. The review was commissioned by the hospital.
A Beaumont Hospital spokesperson told the Medical Independent: “The primary purpose of the TUN [Transplantation, Urology and Nephrology] Directorate External Service Improvement Review is to provide a valuable opportunity to benchmark the programme against international standards and leading practices, beginning the development of an expanded living kidney donor programme in Ireland.
“The review will aim to identify how the National Kidney Transplant Service can best expand living kidney donor activity, and identify opportunities to improve internal processes, enhance donor and recipient safety, and enable the hospital and the wider healthcare system to strategically plan for and allocate resources accordingly. The review process remains in progress.”
The CGP&RC meeting in October 2025 heard about plans to progress the external review in the first quarter of 2026.
In December 2025, the committee heard that members of a review team had been confirmed. In February 2026, the CGP&RC minutes noted that “an alternative approach” would see NHSBT conducting the external review. According to the minutes, NHSBT has experience carrying out similar types of reviews in the UK and Ireland.
In 2025, 29 living kidney donor transplants took place, compared with 30 in both 2024 and 2023, and 33 in 2022. The HSE previously set a target of 50.
In 2024, the median waiting time on the kidney transplant waiting list was eight months for living donor transplants – and 23 months for transplants from deceased donors.
The Irish Kidney Association’s (IKA) pre-Budget submission outlined that kidney transplant is clinically superior and significantly more cost-effective than dialysis. However, “delays persist because of system constraints”.
It called for a 16-week target pathway from work-up to surgery for living kidney donor transplant, “in line with practice elsewhere, including the UK.”
“In Northern Ireland, most work-up tests are completed in a single day, with a maximum 12-week target to surgery.”
The IKA has called for protected diagnostic, theatre, and bed capacity for living donor work-up and transplantation. It is also urging the establishment of the independent panel required to facilitate altruistic non-directed living kidney donation under the Human Tissue Act 2024.
A Department of Health spokesperson said “every effort is being made to ensure that the panel is established as early as possible”.
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