The development of quality within renal services will be
complemented by a number of national
initiatives including:
 |
A national quality infrastructure to support individual
services. This includes the National Institute for Clinical Excellence
(NICE) which aims to disseminate evidence on best practice throughout
the NHS. Opportunities are being pursued to co-ordinate the Renal
Association Standards initiative with the activities of NICE.
|
|
|
A national human resources strategy
(ref.26) has launched a number of initiatives to link training
to service needs and to help staff and services increase their specialist
skills. These may be particularly relevant to advanced practice in
nursing and the development of the Support Worker role.
|
|
|
Increasing emphasis in the NHS R&D strategy on
assessing the benefits of new and emerging applications of technology.
Since renal medicine has a broad technical foundation, this could
provide assistance in the development of new initiatives.
|
|
|
The development of NHS Information Management &
Technology (IM&T) strategy through Information for Health', 1998
(ref.27). This places an emphasis on the development of
accessible information based on a patient's history and future needs.
There may be opportunities to improve local data collection and to
interface with initiatives of the UK Renal Registry.
|
|
|
Despite the success of transplantation and PD, HD remains
the default therapy for all ESRF and the proportion of dialysis patients
on HD will continue to increase.
|
|
|
The National Plan for the NHS was published by the
Government in July 2000 (ref.28).
This sets out a blueprint of how the service needs to be reformed
to improve capacity and to increase the number of doctors and nurses.
It describes linkages between primary care, hospital and specialised
care to ensure patients have timely, accessible treatments. This plan
is backed up by significant funding increases which will be spent
primarily on extra staff and facilities, additional capacity in the
form of extra beds and new equipment and in renovations to existing
facilities. Perhaps the aspect of most relevance to renal services
is the determination to eliminate the inequities and to ensure that
provision and quality of care is consistently high across the country.
|
