By Dr Stuart Deoraj, ST3 Renal Registrar, GSTT For many people with kidney failure, transplantation results in a better outcome than the significant burden of long-term dialysis. But there are challenges to transplantation. Careful monitoring and management of long-term medications, repeated blood tests and close interaction with healthcare professionals are
General News
GOLD Launches telephone support scheme
The Peer Phone Buddies scheme from Gift of Living Donation (GOLD) aims to encourage black patients to talk about kidney donation with their loved ones. It’s also for living donors to learn more about the donation process. Connecting black patients with trained black peer supporters The scheme connects black patients
Join AmazonSmile and help your KPA
Shopping online helps keep us safe during the pandemic, and now you can support your KPA when you shop at Amazon because GSTTKPA has signed up to AmazonSmile. To shop at AmazonSmile: Go to smile.amazon.co.uk on your web browser or activate AmazonSmile on your Amazon Shopping app on your iOS
London Marathon 2020
On Sunday 4 October, while the elite athletes completed the 26.2 miles of the 40th Virgin Money London Marathon in St James’s Park, 45,000 runners from 109 countries ran a ‘virtual Marathon’, often alone and without the support of fellow competitors and spectators. GSTTKPA is very grateful to two amazing
Organ Donation Week
A socially distanced Organ Donation Week (7-13 September) was always going to be a challenge, but all over the UK people went above and beyond to raise awareness. Organ Donation Week 2020 The theme of Organ Donation Week 2020 was to open up the discussion and get people to talk
Your Voice Matters!
Share your experience of kidney care We need kidney care to be always improving and to do that it’s important that, as someone living with kidney disease, you have your say about your experience of care. It’s by listening to you and getting your feedback that change happens and services
Complementary therapies and dialysis. A pilot study
Cancer charities throughout the UK offer complementary therapies that can be used alongside conventional medical treatments. These therapies are associated with benefits like an improved sense of wellbeing, better symptom control and an overall improvement in quality of life. However, kidney patients do not routinely have access to such treatments.
Research and innovation – How the KPA helped
As a young consultant in the renal unit at Guy’s Hospital, one of the challenges I faced was to build up a programme of research alongside my clinical duties. Moving from Oxford to the Guy’s renal unit in 1988, I was lucky to have colleagues who supported my research aspirations.
Patient experience – national survey results
Patient Reported Experience Measure In the summer of 2019, 493 Guy’s kidney patients kindly completed the Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM). National survey of kidney care This is a national survey of kidney care in the UK – you may remember being asked to complete a yellow questionnaire either in
And the winner is…
In Issue 22 of Kidney Talk, we announced the winners of our KPA Research Competition. In this article, Ms Hannah Maple, one of our two winners, describes her project and how her research will help support kidney patients’ quality of life. Mr Nicos Kessaris and I are delighted to have