Karen Thomas, UKRR Programmes Manager
Three years ago this week, I started my role with the UKRR to manage the AKI National Programme. Little did I know that three years on we would have achieved far greater success than I could ever have imagined. 2016 has been the year that all the hard work of the Think Kidneys team has come together and we have experienced some great wins this year.
Back to 2013 though and I knew very little about kidneys, and nothing about acute kidney injury. So how would I cope with this brand new language that would be spouted to me daily? I am however pleased to say I am one of the 51% of the public who know that their kidneys produce urine! I also knew most people had two kidneys and where they are in the body so that was a start, right? Getting to grips with terms such as serum creatinine, potassium, EGFR, amongst others such as haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis and fistulas took some effort but I now find they are part of my repertoire – something that my family find hilarious!
When I started the programme Board had already established themes and priorities for the national programme and all I had to do was turn those aspirations into reality. At the start I had sleepless nights about this – how would I do this when I was learning a whole new kidney language, working with experts in nephrology and understanding nothing about renal data collection?
So, how did I do it? The very simple answer is by being part of an amazing team of dedicated people from all healthcare professional disciplines and patients who are totally committed to raising awareness of acute kidney injury to help save lives. I worked in the voluntary sector for many years but have never experienced anything like the commitment of these people. People who are happy to be involved over and above their day job and believe how important acute kidney injury is and how it needs to be everyone’s business. I am so proud to have worked with an incredible group of people through the Board, workstreams, working group structure and experts from their fields, and all belonging to our wonderful NHS. The programme has produced an impressive amount of guidance and resources for different health and care disciplines and we should be very proud of this.
One of our greatest achievements has been the work we have produced for primary care – a set of guidance and resources as well as an online educational resource for GPs, launched in March of this year. Our work with care homes also developed with resources being piloted during the year and ready for launch early in 2017. In addition, the number of pathology laboratories reporting AKI data to the UK Renal Registry continues to increase. This data will give us much more information about the prevalence of this disease and the impact it has on the NHS.
We also believed that we could run a public campaign during 2016 with very little funding. This was the result of responsibility the Board felt it had to raise awareness of kidneys and their importance with the public. We originally wanted to focus on acute kidney injury but a survey conducted in 2014 showed us that people needed to know the basics about their kidneys, so simple messages about our kidneys and what they do and how to look after them became the focus for the campaign. We created a series of posters with hard hitting and thought provoking messages that we wanted to display in healthcare settings and we launched the campaign in July 2016 with Dr Sarah Jarvis on the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2.
What followed was a series of high profile articles in the news and an increase in social media. At that point I believed our feature on Sky News in August was the icing on my Think Kidney’s cake! And while it was an amazing achievement, little did I know there was more to come in this fabulous year.
When we found out only a few days before that we had been nominated for the Health Business Awards NHS Publicity Campaign Award for 2016, I felt a little bubble of excitement and hoped but couldn’t quite believe that we could win it. We were up against some stiff competition and I spent the next few days in the lead up to the awards consoling myself with being nominated, and accepting that this was a great achievement in its own right.
On the 29 November, myself and Annie Taylor, the person instrumental in leading our public campaign with Think Kidney’s team members, attended the Health Business Awards luncheon and were overjoyed to be announced as winners of the Award by Dr Sarah Jarvis – the person who had helped us so willingly in the summer to get our campaign started.
Award sponsor Mike Gilligan, Karen, Annie and Dr Sarah Jarvis
The sense of pride that we felt was incredible and is a moment that I don’t think either of us will forget. Our award is for everyone, including our patients, who have worked tirelessly on this important programme, the campaign or provided unstinting support for us over the last three years. This award, for me, is now the icing on the Think Kidney’s cake.
As I sit here reflecting on the last three years and thinking about the formal closure of the programme, I feel we have achieved a huge amount in that time. Of course we could do more with more funding but I am very proud of what we have delivered with a relatively small budget. Think Kidneys is not going away. We will build on this fabulous work, the website will stay and the resources will be reviewed and updated as necessary. And we will continue to raise awareness of acute kidney injury.
And to the people who have been part of this work, I would like to thank you. You have made it easy for me to deliver the original aspirations of the Board – your commitment, experience, knowledge and support have been incredible and you should all join with us in celebrating our success. We should all be very proud of what we have achieved.