Publish date: 15 October 2024
The Wessex Kidney Centre emerged victorious at the 2024 NHS Parliamentary Awards, winning The Future NHS Award for its work developing the MyRenalCare app.
Based at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, the team worked to develop the MyRenalCare APP, which supports patients to better manage and monitor their condition.
The app delivers remote monitoring and digital communication between consultants and patients. This enables patients to build their own electronic health record, recording their blood pressure, weight, and symptoms on the app, while blood results are automatically uploaded. Clinicians can review this data, make a clinical judgment and give feedback to patients remotely.
The app itself has had a huge impact on patient care. Last year it helped deliver over 1180 virtual appointments, saving 197 hours of consultant time and increasing outpatient capacity by 33%. This enabled a reduction in waiting times, which went from three months to just two weeks. The app has also helped reduce costs by 25% - roughly £300 pounds per patients per years. Outlining the NHS’s greener ambitions, the apps ability to support people from their homes has considerably reduced the need to travel, reducing CO2 emissions by 50%.
Dr Amir Bhanji, Consultant Nephrologist and Care Group Director for Renal and Transplantation at the Trust said: “The app is having a real impact, patients using it report feeling more engaged in managing their condition and research has proven that patients who are more engaged with their health have better health outcomes. It is also saving money and reducing CO2, all key aims for the wider NHS.”
Whilst the maternity team did not end up as winners in their category, their shortlisting ahead of 900 submissions, and nomination by three local MP’s highlights the strength of their work and its impact on staff and patients.