Winner
Mitigating the Impact of Brexit on Kidney Patients
Summary of work
As the country’s leading kidney patient support charity Kidney Care UK was uniquely placed to understand and amplify the voice of kidney patients in response to complex, ever-changing and multi-faceted Brexit challenges.
Patients faced multiple challenges, especially were there to be a no deal. Almost 30,000 people would potentially lose the right to freely travel to the EU and receive life-maintaining dialysis through reciprocal healthcare agreements. Plus threats of supply disruption could affect almost 67,000 people with kidney problems, on dialysis or with kidney transplants, who rely on the timely and safe supply of life-maintaining and enhancing medications and consumables.
Utilising multiple communications tools Kidney Care UK’s patient-led Brexit Campaign saw us motivate and lead an entire patient community. We engaged with Brexit negotiators and challenged those responsible at all levels across the regions of the United Kingdom as well as the European Commission, both during the Brexit negotiations and in the transition period.
As a direct result the Government protected the rights of kidney dialysis patients to receive dialysis care within the EU as part of the Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC). This powerful campaign has protected and enhanced the rights of kidney patients today and for future generations.
Judges’ comments
The need for this campaign was very clear and Mitigating the Impact of Brexit on Kidney patients was a very well-constructed campaign that achieved real policy change for a difficult issue to campaign on. Kidney Care UK were spot on with a simple yet clear strategy, sharp goals and good implementation and it absolutely delivered. A great result for a small team and we loved the patient activation and partnerships approach.
