Individual care

The Imperial College Renal and Transplant Centre treat every patient individually. We support patients through every step of their treatment at the Unit. Personalised care planning is essentially about addressing an individual’s full range of needs, taking into account their health, personal, social, economic, educational, mental health, ethnic and cultural background and circumstances.  

As part of our Academic Health Science Centre mission last year a new renal pharmacist’s course and a renal patient information conference were launched, both of which involved trainees teaching other professional groups and patients in a formal setting. There are also bimonthly transplant seminars for patients, which involve specialist registrars who give talks and facilitate group discussions.

In a move away from a heavy reliance on didactic lectures, a forthcoming haemodialysis academy problem-solving course creates an interactive learning environment where speakers, facilitators and attendees participate in case-based discussions and interact using voting devices. This type of real-time participation is also used in the transplantation course and allows for immediate analysis of a group’s problem-solving processes and conclusions. Specialist registrars in renal medicine also frequently speak at or facilitate discussion groups. Most courses are at Imperial College Healthcare’s Hammersmith Hospital with fees subsidised or fully funded.

Other regular training offered by the renal and circulation sciences clinical programme group includes:
• Weekly grand rounds (including scientific research, MDT topics, ethics, disease-specific case-based presentations
• Monthly journal club
• Weekly training programme for foundation programme doctors, covering a wide range of topics
• Weekly multidisciplinary case-based teaching meetings including a biopsy meeting, imaging meeting and problem cases
• Cross-programme grand rounds, and Trust staff rounds