Using the Remote Kidney Care Toolkit

The Remote Kidney Care Toolkit has been developed in consultation with clinicians and patients to support and improve the delivery of remote kidney care.

How do I use the Remote Kidney Care Toolkit?

The purpose of the Remote Kidney Care Toolkit is to highlight best practice and improve the quality of remote kidney care appointments for people from underserved groups.

The Remote Kidney Care Toolkit was supported by a grant from Kidney Care UK.

LSBU supported by KCUK logo

This Toolkit was developed by a project team led by Professor Nicola Thomas. Other members of the project team were Fez Awan, Dr Jyoti Baharani, Dr Emma Coyne, Dr Gavin Dreyer, Cat Ewart, Chipiliro Kalebe-Nyamongo, Udita Mitra, Patricia Tum and Professor Martin Wilkie.

We listened to the voices of people with kidney disease about their experiences through interviews and focus groups. We also heard from staff working in renal units about their experiences through a survey.

Patient interview/focus group data identified four improvement themes:

  • quality of appointment
  • patient empowerment
  • patient-practitioner relationship
  • unique needs for underserved groups.

We developed this Toolkit for people working in kidney care based on what we heard. We hope that the information presented here will help improve the experiences of patients and healthcare professionals as they make use of remote appointments.

The Toolkit includes information for clinicians and information that can be shared with patients.

A paper in the Journal of Renal Care describes the full study and can be freely accessed: Getting the most out of remote care: Co-developing a Toolkit to improve the delivery of remote kidney care appointments for underserved groups.

  • When to use remote versus face-to-face appointments

    Use your clinical judgement and work with your patient to evaluate the suitability of remote appointments for their care. Our consultations appropriateness checklist suggests the main points to consider.

  • What do patients expect during a remote appointment?

    Successful remote kidney care requires the replication of face-to-face communication in remote appointments, with particular attention paid to the interpersonal communication and rapport needed to develop ‘digital intimacy’ with patients.

  • Top tips for remote consultations with people from underserved groups

    While online appointments can be beneficial, optimisation of remote kidney care services is required to ensure patients from different underserved groups can have the same experience and outcome as those who do not have specific needs.