Today, 13 March, is World Kidney Day, and an opportunity to highlight how we have been working to improve care pathways for the benefit of patients in the two years since the inauguration of the Donal O’Donoghue Renal Research Centre (DRRC).
We are supporting the academic development of a new generation of kidney researchers by funding protected academic time in consultant job plans, recruiting new Clinical Research Fellows in renal medicine and co-funding non-medical researcher development. We are proud of the DRRC Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) group which already has 13 members and which now actively participates in study design and development of new research grants.
Tackling barriers
One key project that has started within the last year is a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) study that seeks to understand and overcome barriers to research involvement of kidney patients from underserved communities. It’s known that people from economically deprived and ethnic minority communities face different barriers to taking part in research and we want to understand what the barriers are, what the communication requirements for different communities are and how to address their concerns regarding research and its potential interference with their care.
To be able to answer these questions we have trained patient ambassadors, themselves with lived experience of kidney disease, who are interviewing kidney patients in Salford, Oldham, Bury, Rochdale, Bolton and Wigan from the six main ethnic communities that we serve. Information gained from the interviews will be used to design a toolkit for researchers to use in the future and for bespoke social media information campaigns directed to the communities to encourage patients with kidney disease yo take part in research.
Outpatient care
Our efforts to advance patient care pathways can also be seen in the RevOCE-CKD – (Revolutionising Outpatient Care Experience for CKD) project. This piloted the creation of two new pathways, one for consultant-led discussion of patients at a virtual chronic kidney disease multidisciplinary team (MDT) meeting with primary care, and a pharmacy-led pathway for medicines optimisation. The project started with two GP practices in March 2023 and recently expanded to two primary care networks (PCNs) in Salford. This has resulted in an improvement in CKD management, with increased coding, urine albumin testing, and the prescription of indicated medications in participating practices. The MDTs have been designed to be flexible and iterative to make sure they have improved based on feedback and learnings, and also so that they can be adapted to reflect the needs of participating practices and PCNs.