The mission of the new Transform AKC (Advanced Kidney Care) project is to:
• Understand ideal AKC
• Understand unmet needs of people receiving AKC
• Upskill the AKC workforce to provide better, holistic care
• Measure patient progress and outcomes to drive improvement
This is a three year project.
For year 1 (2024-2025) we hope to:
- Understand ideal care and barriers to providing it
- Recruit 5 pilot renal units onto quality improvement (QI)programme
For year 2 (2025-2026):
- 5 pilot renal units perform different QI projects
- Develop elements of AKC change package and toolkit
For year 3 (2026-2027)
- QI projects ongoing + staff training to embed change package
- AKC change package becomes the new standard of AKC care
- Recommendations for “value-based” AKC commissioning to support spread
Events
Transform AKC held a Patient Insight Webinar in Sept 2024, which was attended by 46 patients from various renal units.
Emerging themes included Symptom detection & management, Assessment of patients’ needs, Patient education and Shared decision making, Accessibility & continuity of care, Staff education & training.
We held a Professionals Insight Webinar in November 2024, which was attended by 144 professionals and people with recent experience of AKC.
The webinar aimed to:
- Discuss key themes of good care and unmet needs identified by patients in the September insights webinar.
- Share your perspectives on what ideal advanced kidney care should look like from a professional standpoint.
- Help identify and tackle the barriers that prevent us from delivering the best possible care to our patients.
In March 2025 we held the first annual Transform AKC Summit at the Leonardo Royal Hotel in Birmingham. Aims for the day included:
- Gain insights from patient and staff webinars on advanced kidney care.
- Hear updates from five pilot renal sites (Bradford, Nottingham, Stevenage, Kilmarnock, Royal Free).
- Learn from expert guest speakers on symptoms detection, shared decision-making, frailty, and staying active.
- Participate in interactive sessions addressing unmet needs, including patient education, psychosocial first responder skills, frailty, and pre-emptive transplants.
- Network with healthcare professionals, researchers, patients, and policymakers shaping the future of AKC.
With 200 registrations and average feedback of 4.74/5 - we are delighted with the sucess of the summit. Resources from the event can be found below:
Pilot Site Updates
Guest Speaker Presentations
Symptoms management including PROMS
Dr Sabine Van der Veer, Professor Derek Kyte
How can frailty management transform AKC
Dr Andy Nixon
How can we support people in keeping active?
Professor Sharlene Greenwood
After a year of exploration into the barriers and enablers in advanced kidney care, The Transform AKC team were delighted to welcome 139 attendees to the 1 Year On webinar in October 2025. With project updates from each of the 5 pilot sites, an update from the Patient focus group, a fascinating presentation on shared decision making in practice from Dr Andrew Mooney, and interacive case studies, feedback from the afternoon was great, with an overall score of 4.7/5.
Introduction - Dr Rosie Donne
Pilot Sites
London Royal Free
Bradford
Kilmarnock
Nottingham
Stevenage
Patient Focus Group
Teresa
Harsh
Rory
Shared decision making in AKC - Dr Andrew Mooney