Supportive care
The national pilot Supportive Care KQuIP project is now running in South London, developing and piloting pathways across the renal units at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, King’s College Hospital, St George’s University Hospital and Epsom and St Helier’s University Hospital.
The project spans both patients in the advanced kidney care clinic (where up to 20% of the population are following a conservative care pathway), and those on dialysis for whom quality of life and later life planning are the priorities of care.
Key elements of the project are:
- The development of educational material to facilitate patient choice
- A staff communications training programme
- The systematic introduction of clinical frailty scoring (and cognitive assessment where relevant).
This, together with the introduction of advanced care planning is taking place across both the advanced kidney care clinic and dialysis populations of South London.
The creation of networks to allow referral to frailty, memory or physiotherapy services are in development with an aim to develop more holistic care either instead of or in parallel with patient tailored dialysis.
The group are also trialling a standardised dataset to understand this population and allow quality improvement in this area.
Are you interested in getting involved?
Contact us at KQuIP@renalregistry.nhs.uk
