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DAYLife

Dialysis at Yours: Life Fulfilled (DAYLife)

DAYLife is a national quality improvement programme working to increase access to home dialysis across the UK. The programme supports kidney services to develop and improve home dialysis through quality improvement, mentoring, shared learning and practical resources.

DAYLife is delivered in partnership by the UK Kidney Association, Kidney Care UK, the National Kidney Federation and Fresenius Medical Care.

Improving home dialysis across the UK

There is significant variation in the proportion of people receiving dialysis at home across the UK, highlighted by the 2021 Renal Medicine GIRFT Programme National Specialty Report. This is despite professional guidance supporting greater use of home therapies and evidence from patient groups that more people would choose to dialyse at home.

DAYLife is working to reduce this variation by supporting kidney services to identify barriers, share learning and successful approaches and develop sustainable improvements in home dialysis provision.

The programme supports the GIRFT recommendation for kidney centres to work towards at least 20% of their prevalent dialysis population receiving home therapy, while continuing to improve home dialysis uptake in centres already achieving this level.

Enable culture change and clinical leadership to promote equitable access to high-quality home dialysis therapy in all kidney centres across the UK and ensure provision of the right treatment for the right person at the right time.

  • All kidney centres in the UK to engage and actively participate in quality improvement work around home dialysis therapy by December 2025
  • All centres to achieve a minimum of 20-25% of their prevalent dialysis patients to be on a home therapy by December 2027
  • Centres currently achieving the target of 20% to continue to demonstrate incremental improvement in the proportion of patients on home dialysis year on year

  • Establish a national QI programme that is co-designed with patients and care professionals
    • To identify unmet needs and key national priority areas for improvement
    • Develop and prioritise ‘change ideas’
    • Set up working groups bringing together experts, enthusiasts and patients to develop an implementation plan
  • Raise awareness and provide updates through improved communications with stakeholders and centres
  • Establish a central hub of resources
  • Engage centres to undertake home dialysis improvement work and offer support where required
  • Increase regional QI leadership and capability through mentorship and structured QI training
  • Establish a real-time national home dialysis dashboard

  • Update DAYLife Knowledge Hub to share resources and progress and connect people
  • Ongoing testing and implementation of QI projects from workstreams in engaged centres and networks
  • Supported by regional home dialysis QI training days
  • Engage other networks to roll out successful ideas
  • Progress update through webinars, yearly home dialysis summit and UK Kidney Week sessions

Put home dialysis improvement into practice

Visit the DAYLife Knowledge Hub for practical resources, evidence, and learning to support home dialysis quality improvement. Explore work from kidney centres across the UK, access resources from the DAYLife workstreams and mentoring programmes, use home dialysis data and learn from projects and events.

How can you support the national programme?

  • Prioritise home dialysis improvement projects in your centres/networks
  • Collaborate with other centres within and outside your networks on projects
  • Involve patients actively as partners in your improvement projects
  • Connect and utilise national resources that are being developed as part of the DAYLife programme
  • Embed shared care, psychosocial support, peer support, and shared decision-making within your projects
  • Join the community of practice in the 4 workstream areas and consider pilot projects within your centres

DAYLife Partners

Fresenius Medical Care is the world’s leading provider of products and services for individuals with renal diseases, of which around 4.2 million patients worldwide regularly undergo dialysis treatment.

The FME Team:

  • Suzanne Carroll
  • Emily Rice

Kidney Care UK is the UK’s leading kidney patient support charity, which provides practical, emotional and financial support to kidney patients and their families and funds patient-centred projects to help improve kidney care services throughout the UK.

The Kidney Care UK Team:

  • Paul Bristow
  • Claire Kercher

KQIP is a dynamic network of kidney health professionals, patients and carers who are committed to developing, supporting and sharing improvement in kidney services, to enhance outcomes and quality of life for people with kidney disease.

The UKKA KQIP Team:

  • Udaya Udayaraj
  • Georgina Hamill
  • Kay Elson

The National Kidney Federation is the largest kidney patient charity in the UK run by kidney patients, for kidney patients. The NKF provides national patient support services and campaigns for improvements to renal provision and treatment.

The NKF Team:

  • Andrea Brown
  • Sharney Warren