Kidney Matters Issue 13 - Summer 2021

4
At your service.
We welcome Dr Jan Gough to
Kidney Care UK as Director of
Patient Support Services
Offering accessible, trustworthy patient support underpins everything we do here at
Kidney Care UK. With Jan on board as our newly appointed Director of Patient Support
Services, we are poised to help many more of the three million people in the UK affected
by chronic kidney disease.
Jan Gough joined Kidney Care UK in February 2021
as the newly appointed Director of Patient Support
Services. This is an exciting new role introduced into
the charity to help build on the fantastic work already
being done by the advocacy officers, the counselling
team and patient grant support team across the
regions and the nations in the UK. In addition, this role
will help to grow and develop new digital and face-toface
services to support the needs of patients, and
their families and carers in the coming years.
Jan brings experience of service design and delivery
and joins us from Diabetes UK where she held the
Dr Jan Gough
position of Assistant Director of Services. Prior to this,
Jan worked for the CQC, the national regulator for
Health and Social Care, and before that she spent nine
years at one of the Age UK brand partner organisations
as Director of Operations and CEO.
Jan’s approach to service design is through
engagement and coproduction to consider all
aspects of a person’s need (and changing need) both
emotional and psychological, and physical. Some
of her most recent service designs have been based
on the New Economics Foundation’s ‘Five Ways to
Wellbeing’ principles – connect, being physically
active, learning new skills, giving to others and
mindfulness. This approach also aligns itself with the
World Health Organization’s definition of health being
‘more than the absence of disease’.
How do Kidney Care UK’s patient support services
align with these principles?
• Connect: We connect to you in many ways - via
our national network of advocacy officers, our
webinars, Kidney Matters and across social media
• Physically active: We join you in being physically
active in events that challenge us, keep us physically
fit and sometimes help us raise much-needed
funds
• Learning: We share trusted information with you
about all aspects of chronic kidney disease (CKD)
via our patient information leaflets, our website,
across our social media platforms and in Kidney
Matters
• Giving: You help us support other people affected
by CKD by raising an incredible amount of money
every year for us
• Mindfulness: Life with CKD can get really tough at
times. Our team of professional counsellors are here
to help support you through these difficult times.
www.kidneycareuk.org