Chapter 14 Comparative audit of peritoneal dialysis catheter placement in England, Northern Ireland and Wales in 2011: a summary of progress to July 2012.

BACKGROUND

The central paradigm of effective peritoneal dialysis (PD) is an appropriate standard of PD catheter function.

AIM

The ultimate aim of the project is to develop an effective national PD access audit which will identify what represents an 'appropriate standard' of PD catheter function.

METHODS

A 2009 Renal Association working party recommended that the UK Renal Registry should collect centre specific information on various PD access outcome measures including catheter functionality and post-insertion complications.

RESULTS

The first PD access audit covering England, Northern Ireland and Wales was conducted during April to June 2012 looking at incident dialysis patients in 2011. Forty three data collection spreadsheets were returned from a total of 63 centres describing 863 PD catheter placements of which 225 had a missing date of insertion. Results will be published on the UK Renal Registry website as soon as they are available.

DISCUSSION

There is clearly much to be learned as the project is progressed, including minimising data ambiguities and trying to maximise data completeness (for example it is possible that a patient with a catheter that never worked and never had PD may be overlooked in this audit). However, a comparative PD catheter audit has the potential to provide valuable information on an important patient related outcome measure and lead to an improvement in patient experience.