Kidney Matters

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World Kidney Day Thursday 8th March

World Kidney Day
This year it is on Thursday 8th March 2018.
The K.P.A. together with the renal unit at U.H.B., will be having a display in the Atrium of the Q.E.
As this year it will be 50 years since the Queen Elizabeth Hospital did its first Kidney Transplant.

We are asking transplant patients to send in their thoughts about how a transplant has changed their lives and what it meant for them. Also we invite patients to pop in during the day to shair their experiences with others.

There will be patient information and details about the K.P.A.
So if you are in clinic on 8th March 2018 or on a ward or visiting a relative or friend, why not pop in, have a look and meet us.
Look forward to seeing you all on 8th March

K.P.A. Monthly Meeting

THE NEXT K.P.A.MEETING

The next meting is the 13th June 2018
Due to holidays the May meeting is cancelled

The K.P.A. meetings are open to all, Patients and carers.

We try to meet the second Wednesday of every month at 7.30pm

In the new Faith Centre of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.

The Centre is located above "Costa Coffee" in the main atrium.

To access either the stairs to the left of the reception desk.

or there is a lift located behind the reception desk which brings you out opposite the Faith Centre entrance.

All are welcome to come along and join us.

We are hoping to have a speaker at all our monthly meeting.

WE DO NOT MEET IN AUGUST or DECEMBER

Please check that we are meeting on that date as we do have to change dates at short notice and we are unable to inform everyone.

Please phone 07720597468 to check.

Thank you

All are welcome

Simon Batch travels through India
Simon Batch had a transplant a number of years ago and decided he would like to visit India. Simon a very keen cyclist desided to do it on a bike. He is traveling from North to South. I'm not sure how long he is taking. This is a u tube of part of his adventure. Well done Simon it shows what you can do after a Kidney Transplant.

Draw Results Raffle 2017/18

Winners name	Ticket no	Prize	Winners name	Ticket no.	Prize
M. McNeill	07700	£300	R. Smith	00924	£25
S. Asthana	10885	£150	T. Evans	00907	£10
S. Meghan	03864	£75	Madan Lai	10527	£10
N. Devi	05320	£25	F. Lemm	06375	£10
M Chopra	10999	£25	C. Evans	14308	£10
B. Bhatt	00234	£25	P. Frazier	12265	£10
M. Forrester	13838	£25

The winning tickets were drawn by Jay Nath Transplant Surgeon at the
K.P.A. meeting on 10th January 2018.
All the winners have been notified.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who very generously supported
the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kidney Patients' Association.
We also thank all those who included additional donations. There were too many to mention or acknowledge individually, but please accept our sincere appreciation and thanks.

K.P.A. Annual Draw 2017/2018 Raised over £3200

The Annual Christmas Draw took place at the K.P.A. meeting on Wednesday 10th January 2018 We were pleased to have a visit from Jay Nath Transplant Sergeon from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital who very kindly drew the winning tickets. All the winners have been notified.

We congratulate all the lucky winners and thank all those who very generously supported us.

We raised over £3200 from the sale of tickets and generous donation.

We would also like to acknowledge and thank the very many patients, relatives and friends who gave additional donations included with their Raffle tickets.
They are too numerous to acknowledge individually, but we thank you all for your generosity and kind thoughts.

Red Silicon Wrist Bands WHITE LETTERS

The Q.E.H.K.P.A. has organised free Red Silicon Wrist Bands for Q.E. dialysis patients. These are available from your dialysis unit. If you prefer, you can order one direct from the K.P.A. but you will need to send a 76p Stamped self addressed envelope to the address below and stating what you require.
They come in two types:-
Now with WHITE LETTERING on the left bands only.
FISTULA LEFT ARM Or FISTULA RIGHT ARM
followed by:-
+No BP Testing / Needles + Q.E.H.K.P.A.
There are 3 sizes:-
Left arm 190mm, 200mm. 210mm.
Right arm sizes 200mm and 210mm

As a guide to help choose, if you cut out a strip of paper the length of the above sizes and wrap it round your wrist you can pick the size that fits best. The bands do stretch so they don't have to be bigger to go over your hand. . These are FREE to Q.E. Patients. If renal patients from other hospitals wish to purchase these they will cost £2.00 each plus 76p postage.
We are able to do this due to the generosity of all those who support our fundraising.

Send Stamped address envelope with a 76p stamp please to -
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kidney Patients' Association
c/o Nick Flint
9 Brookhouse Road
Walsall
WS5 3AE

New Patients Transport Service Started 1st May 2017

The New Patient Transport Service started on the 1st May West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (WMAS) has been awarded the five-year contract to deliver the Non Emergency Patient Transport Service (NEPT)

The new contract offers a better quality of service for patients and W.M.A.S. have to deliver this.
The main changes that patients will see are:-

1. Patients will be asked to OPT IN to sign-up for real time information alerts to track the status of their NEPT journey. This will give patients a Text /email when the vehicle is 20 minutes away from collecting from home.

2. Give patients the option to provide patient feedback after each journey via SMS text message or email.

3. Patients should arrive for treatment 30 minutes before their appointed time and collected within 30 minutes after finishing treatment.

4. Patients should spend no more than 1 hour on a vehicle if they live within 15 miles of your dialysis unit.

5. Access to a wide range of ambulance vehicles to meet the medical needs of patients, including high dependency and bariatric patients.

6. A new patient charter, which will provide information on response times and what patients can expect

These are the main changes and improvements patients should now by aware of.

The CCG will be introducing eligibility criteria for transport. Anyone who needs transport because of a medical condition is entitled to it. This means if they are unable to use public transport or unfit to drive due to their condition or the treatment they are receiving they will be entitled to transport. If patients have a financial problem and are on benefits then the cost of train, bus, taxi, or petrol cost can be claimed back from the Hospital Travel Scheme, your unit will have details how to claim this.

To help the K.P.A. monitor performance and how these changes are implemented we ask all the patients who use transport to inform us about how the service is working for them.

Please text, email or write to us. You can find us under CONTACTS The only way to make sure you get the service you need and deserve is to let us know.

Send details of how you get on with the service giving times, dates, and the journey details.

Patient transport must improve so help us to help you.

We look forward to a new service meeting our needs
.

Obtaining your immunosuppression. Questions answered
If you go to "Patient Information" and click "General Information" There is an item produced by the Hospital which should answer all your question. If you need further advice please phone the unit. All the numbers are on the page.

Tom Simons supports the K.P.A. with £8060 donation

TOM SIMONS STORY

In September 2012 following a long illness, I had a Kidney Transplant with my darling wife Jackie being my Kidney Donor. To say this gave me a new lease of life is an understatement and allowed me to follow my passion for golf.

In 2016 I was honoured and privileged to be asked to be the Club Captain at Shirley Golf Club, with the monies raised throughout my Captaincy year going to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kidney Patients Association (Q.E.H.K.P.A.).

I held a Captains Charity Golf Day in May 2016 with several members from (Q.E.H.K.P.A.) there. The event saw 96 competitors play the course, raising £5000 in entry fees, auction prizes and raffle prizes, I even managed to rope my local Santander Bank into having a Bake-off to raise Kidney disease awareness and monies.

My heartfelt thanks to the Management and Members at Shirley GC for their time and generosity.

Other fund raising events through the year were, Captains Charity Raffles at all our Opens, bunker immunity tickets, Captains Drive-In, Charity Bottles in the bar area and other fun competitions.
World Kidney Day on Thursday 9th March in the Atrium, I presented a cheque to Nick Flint £8060 to the Q.E.H.K.P.A. Jackie and I are delighted to be able to 'give something back', for the tremendous work they and the NHS have done for us.

TOM SIMONS.

Chairman K.P.A. Receives Member of the Year Award
at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Best in Care Awards

A surprised Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kidney Patients' Association, Nick Flint, was awarded UHB's 'Member of the Year' at the Best in Care Awards ceremony.

Nick underwent a kidney transplant himself 19 years ago and has worked tirelessly ever since to improve the lives of those patients with chronic renal failure for many years.

He works behind the scenes for you in many ways and is often seen in the dialysis units checking on the service and raising any issues with the QE and the dialysis companies. He is a peer supporter and takes phone calls from patients who need a friendly ear.

As Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kidney Patients' Association committee, Nick is known to man stalls in the hospital atrium to raise awareness about kidney matters to staff and visitors and puts together the newsletters from the K.P.A.

He also works as a patient representative in various projects to improve patient care in the region and works very hard to keep renal patients' interests represented in regards to transport.

His passion for supporting renal patients and their relatives has also resulted in the Q.E.H.K.P.A. raising many tens of thousand pounds for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital over the years.

Congratulations to Nick - a very worthy winner.

Festive Foods and Drink for Christmas
Do not forget to look on the Dietary information for details of Festive Foods and Drinks. There is also a Christmas Cake recipe for those on dialysis. All the information is provided by The Renal Dietitians at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

K.P.A. Supports Renal Research with £23000

Because of the very generous and continuing support that the Q.E.H.K.P.A. receives from kidney patients, friends, relatives and carers of patients and the public in fundraising we are very pleased to be able to support a renal research project being undertaken at the Q.E. This project will have a direct benefit to the renal patients treated by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and also involve the patients here.

The Research Project is led by Mr Nick Inston Consultant Renal Surgeon, who is looking at new ways to access patients' blood vessels for dialysis treatment. Mr Inston said: "Kidney disease patients who are on dialysis require access to the blood vessels multiple times a week and this causes the vessels to scar and narrow. This research is looking at ways to improve the success and longevity of vascular access for patients."

"With the generous support of the K.P.A., the Q.E.H.B. Vascular Access Research Group is leading research in this area. This current project is aimed at using a simple drug to open up the veins after surgery and increase the blood flow to enable more successful outcomes and better dialysis."

Mr Inston added: "I'd like to thank the KPA supporters for their generosity. It's a fantastic sum of money which will have a direct positive impact on renal patient care."

Would you like to help save lives

Are you from the Pakistani or Mirpuri Muslim community

A new project, focusing on raising awareness of how donating an organ, blood or bone marrow can make real changes to many lives is being coordinated by national charity, Kidney Research UK, working with Dr Adnan Sharif, Consultant Kidney Doctor at the QE hospital.
Dr Shariff says: "It is well known that there are a disproportionately high number of patients from this community who are waiting for life saving and life enhancing treatment and transplants. However, it is also well known, that there are disproportionately few donors from this community".
This Department of Health funded project is aimed at training people from the community to become champions - called Peer Educators - and to raise awareness of these issues within their community and encourage people to sign up.
We really need YOUR help to help the Peer Educators raise awareness and get into the community - to mosques, community centres, colleges, and events - ANYWHERE & EVERYWHERE where the community gathers.......do YOU know where they could go to reach the community and raise much needed awareness, and can you facilitate that access please?
If you can help and to find out more, please contact Project Manager, Neerja Jain ASAP on 01923 510 196 or 07810 555 844 or email: neerjajain@kidneyresearchuk.org. THANK YOU!

For more News of the Kidney Patients' Association
Visit the NewsLetter page for the latest copy of Kidney Matters The Newsletter of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kidney Patients' Association

	KIDNEY MATTERS
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kidney Patients' Association