A kidney transplant operation is when a healthy kidney from one person is placed in the body of another person with kidney disease. The person receiving the kidney is called the recipient.
A kidney can either be donated by someone who has died or from a living person.
Not all patients are suitable to have a transplant. For those people who are suitable a transplant will, in most cases, give you a better quality of life than dialysis. Your kidney team will discuss transplantation with you during your clinic visits. You may need to have several tests and medical examinations to help decide whether you are suitable for a transplant.
You will not be put into the transplant waiting pool or put forward for a living donor kidney transplant until you have been assessed as being suitable by one of our transplant surgeons.
Read more in 'Your guide to kidney transplantation' (PDF 298Kb).
Having a kidney transplant
A transplant surgeon talks about the different types of kidney transplants. Patients tell us about their experiences and explain how having a transplant has benefited them.