Kidney Matters - Issue 10 Autumn 2020

28
From the front line
Asking the important questions
Coronavirus: Kidney Care
UK – working hard to
keep kidney patients safe
There is no doubt the coronavirus pandemic has
shaken the whole country to its very core. Kidney Care
UK would like to pay a special tribute to all our NHS
kidney colleagues who have been truly magnificent
in their response to this crisis. We have all had a part
to play. The team here at Kidney Care UK has been
working very closely with the Renal Association and
the British Renal Society to ensure your questions and
concerns are represented at regular briefing meetings
with the Department of Health and Social Care and
the other major UK health charities. Your questions
and comments have helped shape new guidance and
helped us produce and update the coronavirus patient
information.
We have worked with policymakers across all four
UK nations, as each nation has responded in a
slightly different way. Thanks to our Kidney Care UK
Advocacy team for their insight and influence: Ewen
Maclean and Lynne Cunningham - Scotland; William
Johnston - Northern Ireland: and Linzi Isaac – Wales.
We are a small team here but it has been our number
one priority to ensure that you have the updated
information you need as soon as it has been published.
Sometimes this has been very late at night or early
in the morning. With over 500,000 views of the
coronavirus patient information on our website since
March, it is clear that you have found this trustworthy
resource helpful.
Shielding and access to food
At first, formal advice from the government about
who should shield was slow and unclear. We were
told early on that anyone with a transplant or taking
immunosuppressant medication should shield. But
there remained confusion about whether this advice
also applied to people receiving dialysis. Despite our
medical colleagues believing that anyone receiving
dialysis should shield, it took six weeks and many
emails and phone calls from us and our medical
colleagues, for the Chief Medical Officer to confirm
this officially.
Being notified that someone had been told to
‘shield’ helped employers understand which of their
employees should be furloughed on medical grounds,
and slowly helped with access for those shielding
to priority supermarket delivery slots. However, the
letters and texts came through to you very slowly, and
getting food was difficult.
We wrote to the Department for Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and all the large national
supermarkets to urge them to improve their help for
shielded people.
PPE
Provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) for
people travelling to and whilst on dialysis also became
an issue, as it became clear the introduction of PPE
for patients would help to reduce cross-infection
on the dialysis unit. To support this move we wrote
to the Chief Executives of all UK hospitals running a
dialysis service. Their responses were varied, but we
were struck by the thoughtfulness and care for kidney
patients expressed by many of them. We also had to
ask if the protection offered by PPE would be in any
way compromised if a patient wanted to eat or drink
during their dialysis session, whilst wearing it. We asked
the Renal Association and Renal Nutrition Group, who
rapidly developed guidance to support patient choice
and risk awareness.
kidneycareuk.org