March 2025
What is your current role?
I'm a paediatric consultant nephrologist (kidney specialist) at Evelina London Children's Hospital. This means I care for children and young people with kidney conditions in our kidney service. I see patients in Evelina London Children’s Hospital and in network clinics at other hospitals. By travelling to network hospitals and working with local doctors I can offer appointments closer to families' homes. This means they do not have to come to Evelina London Children’s Hospital if one of our network hospitals is closer to them.
What’s the best thing about your job?
The best thing about my job is that every day is different. I look after children with a diverse range of conditions which keeps my work consistently engaging and challenging. On any given day I might be:
- managing the complex care of a child on dialysis
- supporting a child with a long-term kidney condition
- on call, organising the transfer of an unwell child to our hospital from a network hospital
This variety not only keeps me on my toes but also allows me to develop a broad skill set and deep understanding of kidney health.
Having a kidney disease can be challenging, especially for children, but it's incredibly rewarding to see how proper care and management often significantly improves their quality of life.
Tell us about a typical day in your network clinics
I'm involved in 2 network clinics: one at St Peter's Hospital in Surrey and another at St Helier Hospital in Sutton. I feel absolutely privileged to work alongside 2 excellent doctors who make these clinics run smoothly and efficiently. Together we work hard to make sure that patients who attend our clinics have a positive experience.
Our day often starts with us looking at that day's patient list and identifying any investigations that need to be done to make the most of each appointment. When new patients are referred to the clinic we conduct thorough evaluations to establish their diagnosis. For patients we have seen before, we monitor their progress, adjust treatment plans as needed, and celebrate improvements.
It's wonderful to talk to the children and their families, to learn about their journeys and how they find being treated in a network clinic. They are often delighted that they can receive care that combines local expertise with the specialist knowledge of the Evelina London team in one place.
What are the benefits of network clinics?
One of the biggest benefits of the network clinics is that working together with doctors in network hospitals helps us identify kidney disease earlier. This collaboration also means they’re able to care for our patients more effectively between network clinic visits.
Our patients and their families benefit hugely from having their kidney care closer to home. Not having to travel into central London for appointments means they can still attend most of their school day, and their parents and carers can more easily balance work commitments. Families have given us very positive feedback, telling us they have confidence in the care provided in the network clinic.
From an environmental perspective, having one doctor travel to the local hospital rather than multiple families travelling to central London makes a great deal of sense. It's a small but meaningful contribution to reducing our carbon footprint.
What are you most proud of?
For the past 3 years, we in the children's kidney service have been running a series of educational webinars covering a range of kidney conditions to share our experience as a specialist children's hospital. While primarily designed for local hospitals, it now attracts attendees from as far afield as Malta and Canada! This series has become an important part of our efforts to share knowledge and improve care across our network and beyond.
While improvements to the way we work are important, I'm also incredibly proud of the individual successes of our patients. I’m proud of every patient who manages to better control their condition with our support. I'm also always proud when we diagnose rare conditions and are able to implement early care.
What are you working on at the moment?
My team and I are looking to start a children's kidney network, which will be run with local paediatricians who have a special interest in kidney conditions. The network will look at how kidney care in children can be standardised across all hospitals, so that all families can be confident that the care they receive is the same wherever they are treated. We're currently working to expand our network to include more nurses and allied healthcare professionals, like dietitians. This approach will make sure we're addressing not just the medical aspects of kidney conditions but also the broader health and wellbeing needs of our patients.
We're continuously working on improving our network clinics, looking for ways to reach more patients, streamline our processes, and enhance the quality of care we provide. We have collected data from our network clinics and educational initiatives to measure their impact and identify areas for improvement. Our goal is to ensure that every child, regardless of location, has access to timely, high-quality kidney care that's delivered by skilled, confident healthcare professionals.
Thank you to the children and young people who have so brilliantly illustrated our blog pages.