The National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence will be producing a clinical guideline on the “prevention, detection and management of acute kidney injury up to the point of renal replacement therapy”.
The clinical guideline will require improvements in training of undergraduates and post graduates to prevent, detect and manage acute kidney injury. The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcomes and Death (NCEPOD) “Adding Insult to Injury” acute kidney injury study, identified a need to improve the provision of appropriate facilities and resources within hospitals.
“Adding Insult to Injury” study demonstrated that only 50% of patients with AKI received good care. So I am very pleased that NICE has agreed there is an immediate need to undertake the development of this clinical guideline to improve the quality of care for people with AKI . There may also be potential cost savings to the prevention and early detection of AKI.
The target group will include a wide range of healthcare professionals including medical, surgical, nursing, pharmacy and dietetic colleagues as well as patients and patient support groups.
The over-riding purpose of the guideline will be to improve prevention, detection and management of AKI across the NHS.
Guidelines do take time to develop, by the time this AKI clinical guideline is published I expect that all the recommendations of the NCEPOD report will have been implemented throughout our health system.
