Excellence in Patient Education and Support

Summary of work

The capacity and financial constraints facing the NHS are unlikely to be short-lived. Sustainable approaches to managing people with long-term conditions are therefore required. Substantial evidence shows increasing patient engagement is clinically and economically effective.⁽ⁱ⁾ Where patients are encouraged to take an active role in protecting their health, coping with acute episodes of ill-health and managing their disease, their experience and satisfaction improves. People with Established-Kidney-Failure are best treated at home⁽ⁱⁱ⁾, yet patient-training facilities in the NHS are variable, can be inflexible and nurses have multiple responsibilities. Our project aims to demonstrate superior outcomes associated with providing residential group training in a purpose-built centre for patients who chose to do their treatment at home. The Baxter Education Centre (BEC) provides training for NHS dialysis patients and relatives. Comparison of time on treatment was made between patients trained at the centre and those who had trained with the NHS during a 3 year period. Our results showed an additional 1.5 years on dialysis for those trained at BEC compared to those trained using the traditional NHS model.

^{i Coulter 2013 J Ambulatory Care Management Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 80–89.
ii NICE Chronic Kidney Disease Quality Standards 2011.}

Judges' comments

Baxter’s thorough commitment is clear in this neat insight-based project. Thanks to excellent NHS, HCP and patient engagement, the team achieved strong outcomes.