Principal Investigator: Professor Nigel Brunskill

Other key staff: Dr Ursula Montgomery, Dr Warren Pickering, Dr Graham Warwick, Dr Stephen Rogers, Dr Kevin Harris and Dr Philip Shelton

Partners involved: NHS Northamptonshire, Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust, University Hospitals of Leicester and Nene Commissioning

Summary: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a major public health problem with a UK prevalence of 5-8%. The severity of CKD is classified into five stages, CKD1-5, with CKD5 representing the most advanced stage of renal functional loss. Patients with CKD are at risk of progressive loss of renal excretory function and excess mortality due to cardiovascular disease. There is much CKD expertise in secondary care that could support and nurture the institution of management programmes for CKD in primary care, but communication between primary and secondary care varies and is often absent.

The study will involve 50 General Practices across Northamptonshire, with a mixture of renal diagnoses on GP-based primary care CKD registers.   This will be a cluster controlled trial, comparing an intensive, CKD management programme in primary care to normal CKD care.

Aims:

• To determine whether reinforcement of best practice in the management of key aspects of CKD care improves clinical outcomes
• To foster excellence in CKD care
• To improve coding of CKD and prevalence on chronic disease registers
• To increase interest in, and capacity for primary care research in Northamptonshire
• To implement and evaluate a new model of partnership working between primary and secondary care

Further information

If you would like to be involved in this project, or for more information, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Start date: 07/2010                                                            Expected end date: 10/2013

 Study outcomes:

• The primary outcome measures will be blood pressure control and changes in measured estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR)
• The secondary outcomes will be a variety of biochemical parameters, referral to secondary care and cardiovascular events

Positive findings from this study could help inform future CKD commissioning decisions, leading to potential reductions in rates of kidney disease progression in CKD patients, and long term prevention of associated cardiovascular disease.