Kidney Thinking. The blog from Think Kidneys

Paul Cockwell, KQuIP Co-Chair The major variation in clinical outcomes and patient reported experience between and within renal services is a stark reminder that the system is the major factor in the quality of patient experience and in ensuring that each patient has the opportunity for their best outcome. A fundamental goal of quality improvement (QI) is to improve experience and outcomes for patients at a…

A Difficult Start Around 40 years ago, at the age of 12, I began to get initial signs that my kidneys weren’t well.  Four years later at boarding school, my kidneys failed and 147 of the next 365 days were spent in hospital. As a nervous and unhappy child, this was a terrifying and utterly devastating experience. I quickly became overwhelmed and despite the often outstanding…

Members of the Kidney Quality Improvement Partnership (KQuIP) went to the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare sustainable QI training day last month.  A blog is now available reflecting on the day and how KQuIP could promote sustainability through the QI networks that are developing.  For more information on implementing sustainable quality improvement, there are resources available via the KQuIP hub here.

Reflections on training with the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare On 4 October, North Bristol – where I live – joined many NHS Trusts in declaring a climate emergency “to show a clear and positive commitment to tackle it and its effects on the health of our population”.  Shortly after this, during two weeks of climate action by the protest group Extinction Rebellion, hundreds of health workers…

Dr Kerry Tomlinson, Transplant First National Project Lead The Kidney Quality Improvement Partnership (KQuIP) has visited most regions in England and facilitated group discussions around barriers to access to best practice transplantation. In every region there are areas of good practice, but no region has transplant listing absolutely cracked and we found several themes which keep repeating themselves. I presented these at UK Kidney Week (UKKW)…