Major expansion of NKF Advocacy Services
The NKF is pleased to announce a major expansion of its Advocacy Services throughout the UK thanks to financial support from the British Kidney Patient Association (BKPA). The current team of 3 Advocacy Officers will be expanded to 8 Advocacy Officers with effect from April 2012 – advertisements for these new posts are contained within the Winter 2011 edition of Kidney Life and on our Paid Vacancies page.
In 1999 the National Kidney Federation opened the National Kidney Patients’ Helpline, a low call cost telephone helpline available throughout the UK to all renal patients and carers. This Helpline receives over 200 calls per week and is manned by two very experienced NKF employees. The Helpline is the source of more than 200 NKF patient information/medical leaflets. It quickly became apparent that many of the calls the Helpline received were so serious in nature that simple advice over the telephone, or the supply of leaflets was insufficient help. Later that year the NKF employed its first full time National Advocacy Officer (Robert Dunn MBE).
Robert Dunn was himself quickly overwhelmed with patient requests for help and so as the service developed the NKF supported him with two further part time appointments, current post holders being Dennis Crane and Denis Cawdron. Both these posts began at 15 hours per week, but again they were overwhelmed and the hours were increased to 25 hours per week.
The geographical spread that these three employees need to cover is a large part of the problem. Robert Dunn (now replaced by Nicholas Palmer) covers the whole of the UK: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Dennis Crane the whole of the North, and Denis Cawdron the whole of the Midlands and East of England.
Whilst many requests can be dealt with over the phone, many cannot, and require onsite visits. Far too much time is spent by these officers on long journeys to visit patients or have meetings with hospital staff, commissioners and other individuals and organisations. This is why increasing the hours of the part time advocacy officers would do little to resolve the wasted time on making long journeys. What is clearly needed is more part time advocacy officers more evenly spread geographically. The exception is Scotland where the officer would have to be full time as all journeys in Scotland are long and difficult.
Advocacy officers work closely with Kidney Patient Associations (KPAs) and this role can now be expanded or enhanced where required. Officers are highly trained by the NKF and skilled in what they do. The service is governed by advocacy codes of practice, strict rules and confidentiality.
With funding provided by the BKPA, the NKF now expects to be able to employ five more officers so that the new service will look like this:-
Click here for details of the vacancies.
“I am delighted that, with the support of the BKPA, we are now able to significantly expand the advocacy support provided by the NKF. This will enable more kidney patients, their families and Kidney Patient Associations to benefit directly from the individual support provided by the larger team of trained advocacy officers. As a result, The NKF will be able to campaign more effectively in improving the provision for kidney patients during a period of major change within the NHS”
“The Advocacy Team will grow from strength-to-strength; able to sustain national coverage and strategic influence, while delivering improved local service – helping identify and respond to those patients and carers in need.”
“The appointment of additional officers to the NKF advocacy team is to be welcomed.
Less time will be spent travelling by individual officers. I shall be sad to end relationships carefully built up over the past 7 years across those parts of ‘my’ region which will be dealt with in future by one of the new appointees, but do so willingly if it means NKF is able to offer a better service to everyone.”
“This will cut down on the missed meetings with Commissioners, networks, and patient groups, because meetings clash with each other, I frequently have to choose between two or three meetings on the same day. I will be sorry to lose the West Midlands and the relationships I have built up over the past 3 years, but it will mean I will be able to spend more time dealing with the East of England and East Midlands.”