South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: Limiting patient harm due to acute kidney injury (March 2018)

Summary

A team at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Middlesbrough developed a programme to raise awareness of acute kidney injury (AKI) and to recognise and treat the condition promptly. Since the programme started there has been a sustained reduction (36%) in AKI cases within the surgical wards at Middlesbrough. This successful programme and pathway has been shared with seven other trusts in the North East of England. As a result of the AKI project and its links to CRAB Clinical Informatics Limited (C-Ci), other NHS Trusts (Imperial, Frimley Park, Wexham Park, North Devon, St Helen’s, Lincoln, Yeovil, Bartholomew’s, The Royal London and Southend) have now also been consulted, meaning this project has the potential for much wider spread.

Commonly AKI starts in the community so the team is now focusing on strategies to support primary care to reduce AKI in the community and to harmonise AKI aftercare between hospital and community services.

The South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust team was also highly commended in July 2017 at the national Patient Safety Awards.

Content

Top tips:

• Use various techniques to engage healthcare professionals.
• Make it fun.
• Make it relevant.
• Concentrate on wards where the risk is high but the AKI culture is low – this will result in a wider impact.