January 2025 News

Welcome to our January 2025 newsletter.

This month, we focus on education. We learn what you think of our Leadership Fora, we hear from our ICS colleagues how some of their Renal Transformation Programme projects are progressing, and we share details of the NW London podcast, The Rest is Kidneys. You can also find information about the Kings Advanced Kidney Care Symposium.  And we meet, LKN Senior Clinical Advisor, Dr Andrew Frankel.

Meet the Team

We’re delighted to hear from Dr Andrew Frankel this month.

Andrew Frankel

Andrew Frankel

Senior Clinical Advisor

Tell us a bit about yourself? I am a Londoner who has always thoroughly enjoyed living and working in London.  I live with my wife and two cats in Stanmore. 

I qualified from St George’s Hospital Medical School in 1982 and followed a career in nephrology.  I was appointed consultant at Charing Cross Hospital in 1995. Aside from working full-time as a nephrologist I developed a significant educational interest, running the foundation programme for North West London and Imperial for five years before working at the London Deanery ,becoming a Postgraduate Dean from 2013-18. I partially retired in 2018 but continued to be very active clinically and remain as enthusiastic about kidney care as I was 30 years ago.

However, what is more pertinent is the huge changes that I have seen during my career. When telling you about myself, I am describing the second half of the history of the NHS as I have been working professionally within the NHS for 50% of the time it has existed!  In that time, I’ve seen huge change including dramatic changes in our understanding of disease and the treatment options we have, but equally in the way we practice and particularly the way that we work together in multiprofessional teams together with a much more patient centric approach to care.

My passion and interest over the last 35 years has very much been in the area diabetes and the management of chronic kidney disease.  What has been extraordinary to me has been both the growth in numbers of people with diabetes and therefore chronic kidney disease but also the significantly better outcomes that can be delivered to these people if they are able to access good quality clinical care.

What is your role in the LKN? My title is senior clinical advisor but essentially all that means is that I work with the central team of the LKN supporting Stephen, the Programme Team and Rob in their work.

I have particularly taken on a role in relation to working across primary and secondary care and it was a real pleasure for me to spend my first two years working the LKN developing our relations with primary care within the five London ICS’. It brought me into contact with many fabulous people who are working to improve the care of people with kidney disease and working in ways now that will have a genuine impact on the numbers of people who go on to develop chronic kidney disease in the future.

What do you enjoy about working with the LKN? I have always believed that the best way to improve patient care in the very complex environment of London’s healthcare is to encourage collaboration and an attitude to deliver the best possible outcome for people kidney disease. I believe that that attitude is ingrained in the nature of the work of the LKN and I love the fact that the LKN has bought together so many individuals from different units in London in a spirit of collaboration rather than where we were 20 years ago when it was really a spirit of competition.

What is your advice to other people who might be interested in taking on a non-traditional role? That is very simple – get involved! You don’t need to be formally employed by the LKN to participate in the many work streams and there is a huge range of opportunities for participating in projects to improve the care of people with kidney disease. Of course getting involved in these projects will occasionally throw up barriers and difficulties but what you will genuinely find is a can-do attitude to improving the care of people with kidney disease and meet and make many friends across the system who can work with you in solving problems pertinent to kidney disease providing all of you with a fabulous network support structure.

Leadership Fora

We have been holding regularly leadership fora for almost 3 years now.  We made changes a year ago after a feedback survey, and have recently surveyed you again to find out what we can do to make them even better in 2025.

You said, We did…

You Said: You asked us for more tailored content, focusing on topics such as health inequalities, psychosocial care, integration across care pathways, and emerging challenges in renal care.
We Did: Upcoming sessions will include topics such as social prescribing, psychosocial care, and inequalities in healthcare. 
 
You Said: Sessions could be made more practical by providing actionable takeaways and focusing on areas that directly impact daily practice.
We Did: Future fora will include practical case studies or ‘ask an expert’ where possible. 
 
You Said: It’s important that the content is relevant to the diverse roles and needs of participants across the kidney care pathway.
We Did: Sessions will feature a broader array of topics, including presentations from multi-professional team members focusing on multidisciplinary approaches, ensuring inclusivity and relevance for all attendees.
 
You Said: You wanted the fora to support collaboration and shared learning, with opportunities for networking and exchanging ideas with peers.
We Did: Dedicated time for interactive sessions, such as Q&A panels, will be included in future forums to encourage collaboration and shared learning. 

Coming up in the next three months, you can join us to learn about:

The January forum will explore research with the potential to shape kidney care over the next five years. It will focus on key findings which can be translated directly into your practise, with the aim of improving patient outcomes. Meeting Link: Teams
The February session focuses on Social Prescribing, aiming to explain its role in supporting holistic patient care, and emphasising the importance of demonstrating improved holistic patient outcomes Meeting link: Teams
In March, the theme Emerging Challenges Within Kidney Care will provide a platform to discuss  issues impacting kidney care and pathways, including opportunities to look at current strategies, integration across specialties and preventative care. Meeting link: Teams

The Leadership Fora are open to anyone who has an interest in kidney care and wants to learn what they can do to improve care for people affected by kidney disease. 

November 2024 Leadership Forum: Focus on Renal 3Ps Transformation Programmes

We invited programme leaders from all 5 ICS Teams to share progress on one of the projects from their ICS’s Renal 3Ps Transformation Programmes.  All London ICSs were awarded £2m in May 2023 to pilot new approaches to kidney care, based on their population’s kidney health needs.  Every ICS is running a package of pilots across the pathway, focusing on areas such as early identification, optimisation and early intervention, improving fitness for transplant, and improving frailty management in those with advanced kidney disease.

With over 100 attendees listening and taking opportunity to ask questions, it was clear that the early results are positive, and there is a lot of interested in sharing learning and trying to replicate findings across London. 

You can find out more about these projects on our new web page, here: https://londonkidneynetwork.nhs.uk/working-collaboratively/ 

‘The Rest is Kidneys’ podcast launches in North-West London 

The team in North West London have created a podcast about all things kidney.  It started life as “NWL Kidney Care Podcast”, and has recently been rebranded as ‘The Rest is Kidneys’, aiming to stand out more, reaching more people to help educate and inform.  Hosted by Consultant Nephrologists Andrew Frankel and Jeremy Levy from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, The Rest is Kidneys offers concise, 15-minute episodes to support healthcare professionals, especially in primary care, with the latest insights on kidney health.

Joana Teles, Clinical Nurse Specialist and North West London Chronic Kidney Disease Lead, says: 

“The podcast has successfully reached the top 20 UK medical podcasts and is now aiming to reach the top 10. We need your help! You can support by sharing the podcast with your networks and teams. Your support has been key to this success.

Listeners are encouraged to share the podcast with healthcare colleagues and peers, as well as leave reviews on platforms like Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We have prepared social media resources that you could use to help spread the word. Remember to tag us when you do”

You have find the full episode listing and listen here  https://www.buzzsprout.com/2404938/episodes

Kings Advanced Kidney Care Symposium

Maximising Care, Optimising Choice

27 February 2025

This Symposium is relevant for all Health Care Professionals. By the end of the symposium, you will have learnt about:

    • Advanced Kidney Care research updates
    • What’s new in Transform AKC
    • Enabling home renal replacement treatments
    • Improving outcomes for ‘crash landers’
    • Transplant First: achieving the goal
    • Transplant work-up with complex medical conditions
    • The role of a Geriatrician in Advanced Kidney Care
    • Psychological support for patients entering Advanced Kidney Care
    • Occupational Therapy in Advanced Kidney Care
    • Interactive complex clinical cases

You can register here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/advanced-kidney-care-maximising-choice-optimising-care-symposium-2025

Correction

Last month’s newsletter included an article on the fantastic work that the CKD Prevention workstream have been doing with Kidney Care UK.  The eagle eyed among you will have spotted that the e-mail didn’t include a link to the article.  You can find it here https://londonkidneynetwork.nhs.uk/november-2024-newsletter/