Acute kidney injury (AKI) is considered a silent disease that commonly occurs in patients with acute illness; however, given that it has few specific symptoms and signs in its early stages, detection can be delayed. AKI can also occur in patients with no obvious acute illness or secondary to more rare causes. In both these scenarios, patients are often under the care of specialists outside of nephrology, who might fail to detect that AKI is developing and might not be familiar with its optimum management. Therefore, there is a need to increase the awareness of AKI among many different healthcare specialists. In this article, we summarise the key recommendations from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) AKI guideline. The guideline provides recommendations for adult and paediatric patients on the prevention, early detection and management of AKI, as well as information on AKI and sources of support. Implementation of this guideline will contribute to improving patient safety and saving lives.
Keywords: Acute kidney injury (AKI); NCEPOD; NICE; definition; management; patient safety; prevention; referral; research; risk.