The Home Dialysis Special Interest Group (SIG) brings together members of the kidney community to improve access to and delivery of peritoneal dialysis and home haemodialysis across the UK. It aims to reduce variation between services and support safe, consistent care for people receiving dialysis at home.
The SIG draws on professional expertise, lived experience, national data and learning from kidney services to develop education, practical guidance and approaches to service improvement.
The SIG works alongside DAYLife, Dialysis at Yours: Life Fulfilled, a national home dialysis improvement programme delivered through KQIP in partnership with Kidney Care UK, the National Kidney Federation and Fresenius Medical Care.
The DAYLife hub provides quality improvement resources, data, learning from kidney centres and information about mentoring programmes for home dialysis teams.
Medical Co-Chair
The SIG’s work includes:
The Education workstream identifies learning needs and supports the development and sharing of training for professionals involved in peritoneal dialysis and home haemodialysis.
It reviews existing UK and international resources, identifies gaps relevant to UK services and helps translate guidance and quality improvement learning into practical education for multiprofessional teams.
The Guidelines workstream develops and reviews best-practice resources for UK home dialysis services.
Current work includes a national best-practice document for home haemodialysis, drawing on published evidence, local protocols and professional experience. The workstream also considers how international peritoneal dialysis (PD) guidance can be interpreted and implemented within UK services, including recommendations concerning assisted PD and transfer from PD to haemodialysis.
The Peritoneal Dialysis Access workstream is examining variation in access to peritoneal dialysis catheter placement across UK kidney centres.
Its work includes mapping local pathways, availability and service capacity to identify gaps and inform future work to support timely and equitable access to peritoneal dialysis.
The SIG works with the UK Renal Registry to improve the home dialysis information available to kidney services. This includes measures relating to peritonitis and transfer from peritoneal dialysis to haemodialysis.
More frequent reporting helps services compare their performance, monitor changes and identify areas that may require further review. These measures must be interpreted alongside local context, including the reasons for treatment changes and the completeness of the underlying data.