The Phone Buddy Scheme Toolkit provides advice to centres on how to get started with the QIP to improve access to living donation for African Caribbean renal patients.
The toolkit was developed in collaboration with renal clinicians in London and the London Kidney Network (LKN) but can be used in centres outside London where there is a high population of Black renal patients.
Improving access to living kidney donation for
Black kidney patients
Patient and public involvement work suggests that discussing living donor transplantation with a peer who understands the experiences as a kidney patient or living donor can help navigate the culturally specific difficulties of approaching the topic with family and friends.
The rates of pre-emptive living donor kidney transplantation for Black kidney patients have not increased at the same rate as for those of White ethnicities in the UK.
NHSBT Report of Kidney Activity, section 5, p50
GOLD works to raise awareness of pre-emptive living donation in the Black community. It has collaborated with the London Kidney Network to develop a quality improvement project funded by the NHS Blood and Transport community investment scheme.
What the GOLD peer phone buddy scheme offers
How does the GOLD QI project measure and generate improvement?
We look at the implementation and outcomes of the GOLD peer phone buddy scheme within participating renal centres.
The project enrols multiple renal centres with varying staff and service structures but collects the same simple data. This data is used to inform continued improvement at a site level by working with clinical teams and at a project level using QI tools.
How is the QI project structured and how do I start it in my centre?
To start the GOLD QI project in your centre, you need to:
- Identify a multidisciplinary clinical team based in transplant and/or advanced kidney care (two or more people)
- Identify someone to collect and report the data (we can help identify a trainee for this role)
- Complete centre-specific governance procedures such as registering the QI project and discussing with relevant departmental leads
How can the GOLD QI team help the launch?
- We will work with clinical teams to implement the scheme; initially starting small with an identified pathways (process mapping) within a centre before scaling up the project.
- We will provide culturally tailored literature and posters.
- We work out how to operationalise the data extraction with the identified data person for each site.
- Once launched, we advise clinical and data teams during monthly meetings, helping them to review progress and discuss challenges. The GOLD team can join these meetings when invited and help to promote the project.
- The data is recorded on a shared and secured NHS OneDrive document; this allows a monthly report to be released to participating centres with anonymised data.
Join us to improve health equity in your centre, contact us: buddy@giftoflivingdonation.co.uk