The 10 Year Health Plan: will it deliver for kidney patients?
Today, the government announced the NHS 10 Year Health Plan, which sets out the future of the NHS.
While we welcome the plan’s emphasis on prevention, particularly for cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes, it fails to explicitly recognise that kidney disease is closely associated with these conditions. Kidney-specific measures must be introduced.
The plan focuses on three ‘shifts’:
- From sickness to prevention: to enable people to be healthier for longer.
- From hospital to community: to ensure that more people can access care closer to home and do not have to go to hospital by default.
- From analogue to digital: focusing on how digital solutions and technology can improve health and the NHS.
There are a number of areas that will be of interest to our supporters.
Genetic testing
As part of the move towards prevention, the government has announced that clinicians will use information from genetic testing to give patients a better understanding of their risk of certain diseases, including some kinds of kidney disease.
This is a positive step in the right direction in ensuring that people understand and can prepare for whatever their future may hold. However, it needs to be supported by a care pathway for those who go on to develop kidney disease and does not replace the need for increased screening in primary care.
Neighbourhood health service
The government has also committed to a ‘neighbourhood health service’ which aims to bring more care closer to home, introducing 200 community-based neighbourhood health centres, beginning in places where healthy life expectancy is lowest - resulting in a ‘one stop shop’ for patient care and the place from which multidisciplinary teams operate. Neighbourhood health centres will be open at least 12 hours a day and six days a week, staffed by a range of different healthcare professionals.
If successful, patients will be able to access support from a wide range of professionals in primary care faster, at times that work for them, and in their community. However, this will only deliver for kidney patients if neighbourhood services are fully equipped to act. That starts with ensuring staff are trained to understand the signs of kidney disease and have the resources to deliver truly holistic care for kidney patients' physical and mental wellbeing too.
Makeover for the NHS app
Patients will also be able to use the new and improved NHS app to book appointments and see their medical information in a single record, with the aim of reducing the number of times that patients need to repeat themselves with different clinicians. It should also encourage joined up working across different health care services.
While this may empower patients and allow them to see medical professionals quickly, it risks excluding people without digital access. As such, it’s vital that patients can still access support through other means, such as in person or on the phone.
Focus on research
We were also pleased to see that the government has announced its intention to transform the NHS into a global research and innovation powerhouse, recognising that research can help transform patient care and that the skills of professionals delivering that care – including nurses, midwives and allied health professionals – should be harnessed.
We support the aspiration for greater access to clinical trials; this must pave the way to new and innovative treatments for patients living with the devastating impact of kidney disease.
More from us soon
We’ll be sharing more communications over the next few weeks to give you more insight into the different aspects of the 10 year plan and what they mean for you.
While these steps seem positive, there is so much more that needs to be done in order that that the complex needs of kidney patients are not overlooked.
Watch this space for how you can help ensure kidney patients are prioritised.
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