Category Archives: kidney disease

The kidney patient subject to bedroom tax – even if room is used for dialysis machine

Plight of MP’s brother raises questions about fairness of controversial welfare reform

It has been 30 years since Rivers Pound moved into his specially adapted council flat in Earl’s Court, west London. The 55-year-old has been on and off dialysis since his first kidney failure at 19, and his flat was one of three in the block designed with its own dialysis room, part of a council scheme to house residents with renal problems.

Then, in April, the Coalition introduced its welfare reforms and everything changed. Although Rivers’s body was rejecting a third transplanted kidney, he was not on dialysis at that moment and so the room that housed his equipment was deemed surplus to requirements.

According to the inflexible rules of the under-occupancy policy known as the “bedroom tax”, he had to find another £120 a month for this “spare” room – or find a new home.