NCA colleagues are adding their expertise to a national programme to improve and standardise advanced kidney care (AKC) in the NHS.
People with advanced chronic kidney disease need timely, multidisciplinary care to enable the best outcomes. However, staff and funding shortages often lead to unmet patient needs. There is currently no consensus around best practice in multidisciplinary interventions in advanced CKD.
That’s why the UK Kidney Association Kidney Quality Improvement Partnership (KQIP) has introduced its Transform AKC project. NCA colleagues are undertaking a review of existing research to identify current and best practice interventions to address unmet needs in advanced kidney care.
Librarians Karen Storms and Rebecca Stansfield are working with Professor of Nursing Helen Hurst and Renal Consultant Dr Rosie Donne, along with colleagues from the University of Bristol, King’s College Hospital and Imperial College London. The work has also been shaped by feedback from a patient focus group.
AKC services are designed for patients with advanced chronic kidney disease who may be approaching end-stage kidney disease when the kidneys are no longer able to remove waste and excess water at a level needed for day-to-day life. Patients might then need to receive dialysis or a kidney transplant.
A core part of care at this stage is the multidisciplinary team – not just specialist doctors and nurses but also dietitians, psychologists, vascular access specialists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, pharmacists, social workers and geriatricians.
The AKC review will look at the education these teams need as well as what interventions can improve outcomes for patients, including quality of life and symptom burden.
It will also examine the role of tools to assess patients’ needs, support decision-making and identify evidence on the effectiveness and patient experience of current practice and models of care.
“Working on this AKC search has given us the chance to support the clinical authors by creating the search strategy, advising on which databases are best for the topic and running the searches. We are thrilled to be a part of this publication,” said Karen Storms and Rebecca Stansfield, evidence librarians, NCA Library & Knowledge Service.
The plan for the scoping review has been published in BMJ Open.
Pictured from left: Prof Helen Hurst, Rebecca Stansfield, Karen Storms, Dr Rosie Donne.