NHS England has welcomed the publication of the Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) Guideline published by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) today.

The guideline emphasises the importance of early intervention and risk assessment and highlights the need to promote early detection and educate patients and professionals about treatment.

In partnership with the UK Renal Registry, NHS England is establishing a programme of work focussing on reducing avoidable AKI and on improving the management of patients, where AKI is not avoidable.

Over the next three to five years the programme aims to provide clinical teams with the education and tools to better detect and treat AKI, empower patients and carers with information and knowledge about how to reduce their risk associated with AKI, establish a commissioning structure that recognises and responds to the needs of people with AKI and develop registry and data systems to enable national auditing.

Dr Mike Durkin, Director of Patient Safety at NHS England said:

“We welcome this new guidance from NICE which clearly recognises that AKI is avoidable in many cases and which is something that is also a key priority for our patient safety teams.

“In addition to a new programme of work to look at reducing avoidable AKI  and improving patient management, the guidance also firmly supports some of our current work which focuses on a range of key areas including frail and elderly patients, nutrition and hydration, healthcare associated infection and primary care.”

Dr Richard Fluck, National Clinical Director (Renal), for NHS England said:

“We are pleased that the new NICE guideline highlights the scale of the problem, the addition of Acute Kidney Injury to on-going illness prolongs patient stays and delays their recovery.

“However, the NHS has a real opportunity to transform care and improve outcomes by providing systems and evidence for improvement in care.

“We hope that in the next five years our new programme will result in well informed and proactive multi-professional teams, patients and carers who will be empowered to seek support when needed and research into AKI that will be well established.”