§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner)My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
I am today publishing National Service Framework for Renal Services, Part One: Dialysis and Transplantation.
The national service framework (NSF) programme is a major part of our agenda to tackle health inequalities and to drive up standards across the National Health Service. Part one of this NSF covers dialysis and transplantation. It sets standards and identifies markers of good practice that will help the NHS and its partners to manage the demand for renal services, increase fairness of access and improve choice and quality in dialysis and kidney transplantation.
This is an important part of our modernisation programme to improve renal dialysis and transplantation services over the next 10 years. The framework sets out five quality standards to provide a flexible, responsive service that provides patients with better access and choice. It identifies 30 markers of good practice drawn from national and international evidence. This NSF builds on the programme of modernisation set out in the NHS Plan and the national service frameworks for diabetes, coronary heart disease, older people, and children. It reflects the principles of empowering patients and frontline staff contained in the NHS Plan and Shifting the Balance of Power, and of extending patient choice as set out in Building on the Best: Choice, Responsiveness and Equity in the NHS (Cm 6079)
This NSF complements Saving Lives, Valuing Donors—A Transplant Framework for England and supports our aim to increase the number of kidneys available for transplantation.
The five NSF standards for renal services set out a vision of a service that is equitable and integrated and that provides people with the support they need to 29WS make individual choices and to manage their own condition.
The NSF for renal services sets out five steps for the NHS to take by 2006:
Use national data to support planning and to identify local priorities, including the needs of black and minority ethnic groups;Continue to expand haemodialysis capacity;Join the UK renal registry and take part in national audit;Implement National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance on home haemodialysis;Implement forthcoming NICE guidance on immunosuppressive therapy for transplantation.In addition we will establish five modernisation programmes to support the implementation and delivery of the NSF. These programmes are to:
- Redesign the renal dialysis and transplantation workforce;
- Re-engineer elective dialysis access surgery;
- Redesign access to hospital (patient transport);
- Redesign care plans to enable partnership and choice;
- Redesign the built environment.
We will continue to work with doctors, nurses, allied healthcare professionals, NHS managers and people with renal failure to develop part two of the NSF concentrating on prevention of established renal failure, primary care and care towards the end of life.
Copies of National Service Framework for Renal Services, Part One: Dialysis and Transplantation have been placed in the Library.