Scottish Donation and Transplant Group written update: December 2024

Living donation

Update given by:

• Jen Lumsdaine, Living Donor Co-ordinator, NHS Lothian

Education and publicity

There were a number of presentations at the Scottish Renal Association (SRA) meeting held in St Andrews in November, including on timely transplantation, improving equity of access and the implications of travelling overseas for transplant. A Renal Education and Choices at Home (REACH) Transplant update was presented at the East meets West meeting in June. Other presentations have included nurses’ groups and post graduate education.

The NHS Lothian REACH Transplant Nurse, Alison Sharry, won the best nursing abstract prize at the SRA for her work on developing a survey to assess the impact of REACH Transplant for patients, other attendees and clinicians.

Timely transplantation

The short-term working group, chaired by Ms Karen Stevenson, Consultant Transplant Surgeon in Glasgow, continues work to explore barriers to timely transplantation in Scotland, including pre-emptive living donor transplantation and timely listing for deceased donor transplantation. Particular focus is being made on the differences in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) pre-emptive rates, which continue to display the disparity for those in a lower socio-economic group (SIMD 1 and 2) This will be monitored with the new reporting to the Scottish Renal Registry which is collecting pre-emptive treatment modes and presenting by SIMD. Next steps are being discussed at the Living Donor Forum in Stirling with a proposed quality improvement initiative.

Living donor co-ordinator competencies

The national living donor competencies have been forwarded to the transplant management teams in Scotland and all living donor coordinators and specialist nurses have agreed mutual mentoring with a colleague from another centre.

Living donation workforce planning

Following completion of the workforce planning report this has been forwarded to the transplant managers in all units. Feedback has been positive, with some units using the data to highlight shortfalls in their hospitals and review roles.

This has also been utilised in the review of the living donor reimbursement policy where it was identified that clinical staff were spending significant time with the reimbursement admin and other options are being explored.

Kidney transplants in Scotland 2016-2024