This course teaches you how to recognise acute kidney injury early, how to find and treat its cause, and how to review medicines and fluids safely. It follows the NICE guideline on acute kidney injury and uses worked ward scenarios so you can apply each step in practice.
What you will learn
- Define acute kidney injury using the NICE criteria and stage it using creatinine and urine output.
- Identify patients at increased risk of acute kidney injury and the situations that should prompt monitoring.
- Carry out a structured assessment of a patient with acute kidney injury, including fluid status, urinalysis and a search for obstruction.
- Review a medicines chart in acute kidney injury and decide which medicines to stop, withhold, adjust or monitor.
- Recognise the complications that need urgent action, including hyperkalaemia and fluid overload, and know when to refer to a renal team.
Course content
- What acute kidney injury is and why it matters (2 min)
- Defining and staging AKI (3 min)
- Who is at risk, and when to look (2 min)
- Assessing the patient: a structured approach (3 min)
- Medicines review in AKI (3 min)
- Fluids and monitoring (2 min)
- Complications, referral and discharge (4 min)
- Knowledge check (10 questions, 10 min)
- Guided reflection (15 min)
Standards and guidance covered
- NICE guideline NG148: Acute kidney injury: prevention, detection and management
- NICE guideline CG174: Intravenous fluid therapy in over 16s in hospital
- GMC: Good Medical Practice (2024) and Good practice in prescribing and managing medicines and devices
- NMC: The Code (2015, updated 2018), including the sections on recognising and responding to deterioration and on medicines
- GPhC: Standards for pharmacy professionals (2017)
Certificate
Courses are free to study. When you pass the knowledge check (80%) and complete your reflection, you can buy a verified certificate showing your CPD time, with a unique ID and QR code that anyone can check on our verification page.
Study free at your own pace on any device.
Practitioner Insight is an independent education provider. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the GMC, MPTS, NMC, HCPC, GPhC or any NHS organisation, and this information is not legal advice. If you have been referred to a regulator, speak to your defence organisation, trade union or legal representative.