The Norm Bourke Box: A Patient-Led Initiative to Improve Care for Rural Patients Requiring Peritoneal Dialysis

Patients living in rural communities face many barriers and challenges in accessing peritoneal dialysis (PD) because it often requires travelling long distances, and accommodation away from home for training and follow-up. Patient perception is that there is a lack of financial support for out-of-pocket expenses, which makes home-based treatments less appealing. It can be difficult for patients to source equipment required to do PD safely and effectively at home, and more difficult for those who live in rural or remote settings. This article describes a patient-led initiative–the “Norm Bourke Box” (NBB) for patients requiring PD in rural New South Wales, Australia. The NBB provides necessary equipment including bathroom scales and a blood pressure machine, that are not supplied by the health service. For patients, this has enabled a “good start” to PD and has helped to alleviate the financial burden and stress of needing to source the equipment required for PD. This also gave patients and staff reassurance because patients could undertake training with the equipment that they would be using at home to support efficient and safe practice at home. Efforts are now underway to expand the distribution of the NBB to help improve access and care for rural patients on PD.