Renal services

Who the service is for

Patients who need acute or ongoing treatement for a kidney condition.

Renal service

At Basildon University Hospital there are 24 haemodialysis stations; this is the largest renal unit in Essex. The unit currently has over 150 patients receiving haemodialysis daily, six days a week.

At Orsett Hospital there are 10 haemodialysis stations with the capacity to treat up to 30 patients a day.

The unit provides both acute and chronic treatments:

Haemodialysis
Peritoneal dialysis
Care for pre-dialysis patients

Services include:

Renal support to other specialities
Specialist management of patients with progressive renal disease
Invasive investigation (angiography and biopsy)
Haemodialysis programme for patients with established renal failure
Continuous ambulatory and automated peritoneal dialysis programme, which patients carry out at home
Renal transplantation follow up clinics
Vascular access surgery

Investigative Nephrology

General nephrology and pre-dialysis clinics
Joint clinics for Diabetic Renal Disease
Dedicated inpatient beds on Elizabeth Fry Ward at Basildon Hospital
Full range of investigative facilities including ultrasound, angiography, nuclear medicine, spiral CT angiography and renal biopsy
Hypertension clinic with 24-hour blood pressure monitoring

Acute renal failure and chronic end stage renal failure

Designated renal patient beds situated on Elizabeth Fry Ward for patients with acute and chronic renal failure
Haemofiltration and haemodialysis facilities on Critical Care Unit at Basildon Hospital for patients with acute renal failure complicating multi organ failure

Renal Kidney UK patient information leaflets to download

https://www.kidneycareuk.org/about-kidney-health/order-or-download-booklets/

Contact

Renal Unit Basildon: 01268 524900 ext 4772
Renal Unit Orsett: 01268 524900 ext 2288
Nephrology and General Medicine: 01268 524900 ext 8254
Renal Medicine: 01268 524900 ext 3937

Renal Dialysis Care service profile

The Broomfield hospital based specialist renal team provides a regional renal service for patients in Mid Essex . We provide comprehensive renal services for patients with either Chronic or Acute Renal Failure on an in-patient and an out-patient basis.  

Patients benefit from a comprehensive service that includes Nephrologists, nurse specialists, specialist dieticians, haemodialysis, and peritoneal dialysis staff.

We also offer pre kidney transplantation workup and post kidney transplantation follow up (recipient and donor).

Weekly clinics are held at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, St Peters Hospital in Maldon, Braintree Community Hospital.  Not all renal clinics are held in all locations.

Location and Contact details

The Mid Essex Renal Dialysis Centre is located at Broomfield Hospital.

Renal Dialysis Unit (A208)
Court Road
Broomfield Hospital
Court Road
Chelmsford
CM1 7ET

Tel: 01245 514208
Fax: 01245 514247 

We are located on the second floor of the PFI building and our wayfinder number is A208. 

Referrals

Referrals to the renal clinics should be made via the GP to ‘The Consultant Nephrologist’ at the address above, or through electronic referral systems.

Haemodialysis Service

We are a 23 station unit and offer haemodialysis treatment for acute and chronic kidney patients in the Mid Essex Area along with Holiday Haemodialysis for patients wishing to visit Chelmsford and the local area, subject to availability.  Patients dialyse over three shifts, Morning (7am start), Lunchtime (1pm start) and Twilight (6pm start).  We promote self care and our multidisciplinary disciplinary team meet regularly to discuss each patient’s condition.  We are also able to offer Holiday Dialysis, when capacity allows, for patients with a valid NHS or EHIC entitlement.

Home Therapies Service 

There are three different Home Therapies: PD, APD and HHD.

Peritoneal dialysis is an alternative renal replacement therapy (RRT) for patients in End Stage Renal Failure (ESRF).  This nursing team provides a service to patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis – CAPD (continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis) and APD (automated peritoneal dialysis).  APD and PD patients are dialysed at home. We now offer Home Haemodialysis (HHD) where a dialysis machine is set up at home. The home therapies team also carry out house calls, when appropriate.

The Home Therapies specialist nurses follow patients through from pre-dialysis, support patients at home and monitor the efficacy and suitability of their treatment.

Contact the Home Therapies team: 01245 516563

General Nephrology

We offer main outpatient clinics for patients with abnormal kidney function for assessment and follow up care. 

Renal anaemia is treated by the use of iron therapy and administration of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs, also commonly called EPO, an abbreviation for erythropoietin).  Responsibilities of the “Anaemia Nurses” include the monitoring of renal anaemia and iron deficiency, especially in pre-dialysis and conservative management patients. As they have regular contact with these patients they also provide on-going support and patient education.

The pre-dialysis nursing team work closely with the Consultant doctors seeing outpatients approaching end stage renal failure (ESRF).  They provide advice and information on all aspects of care including options for treatment, treatment modality and dialysis access, supporting them in making informed choices and giving them and their family’s psychological support at a very difficult time in their life.

Contact anaemia clinical nurse specialists: 01245 514364
Contact pre-dialysis clinical nurse specialist: 01245 514364

Access and Transplantation Services

Patients need either vascular access for HD or peritoneal access for PD; these operations need to be performed in theatre and the Access nurse manages the waiting list, ensuring that patients in most need are operated on first.  Once the access is in place she monitors the patient to keep the access healthy.  The unit works closely with our in house surgical team who provide specialist Vascular Access surgery. 

Many patients are either hoping to be activated on the UK transplant list or already on and awaiting a transplant.  The transplant nurse counsels the patients, communicates with the transplant teams and organises specific tests to ensure that the patients are fit for the operation. 

Three to six months after the patient is transplanted, patients are given the opportunity to repatriate to Broomfield for their follow up care at our weekly transplant clinics to ensure they and their new kidney stays healthy.  

Access clinics run fortnightly and pre-transplant clinics run 10 times a year, with a team visiting from Addenbrooke’s Hospital.  

Our Clinical Nurse Specialist co-ordinates these two services under the Lead Nurse.  Patients can also choose to come under the care of the Royal London Hospital’s transplant team and in this instance the tests and pre-transplant clinics are carried out at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. 

Clinical Nurse Specialist: 01245 514330

Nutrition and Dietetics

We have 2 full time specialist renal dietitians who care for all dialysis patients; Haemodialysis, nephrology outpatients, home therapy dialysis and ward A305 (Terling) inpatients.

Responsibilities include giving individual dietary support and advice to patients and their families based on monitoring of blood results.  

Contact Aleutia House - advanced specialist renal dietitian: 01245 514204

Contact specialist renal dietitian contact: 01245 514204

Inpatient Renal Services

We manage a wide variety of Acute Kidney Injury and other patients with Nephrology problems.  We have facilities for acute dialysis, renal biopsies and line insertions.  The medical team includes Renal Consultants who are available for assessments.  The dialysis unit works closely with the renal medical ward (A305) in caring for renal patients and senior ward nurses have post-registration renal qualifications. 

Pharmacy

In addition to the both the inpatient and outpatient Hospital Pharmacy teams, our renal services benefit from a specialist renal pharmacist for both our dialysis and inpatients.

Other services: 

We provide a comprehensive and integrated service covering all features of Nephrology within a hospital environment.  In addition to the above we also offer the following:

New patient renal assessment

Invasive investigations (biopsy and angiography)

Telephone advisory service for patients and Primary care health care professionals. 

Education programme for Low clearance patients, including haemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis and transplantation.

Nephrology support for other specialities.

Access to Patient View, an online service for patients under our Nephrology Team is available: Contact Sanjeev Khinder 01245 516396 for further details.

Renal Research

We believe that everyone has the right to take part in clinical research, and that involvement in high-quality studies should be a care option available to every patient.  

We deliver cutting edge research which shapes new models of healthcare to improve patient safety and care.  Our research may be investigating the use of the latest medicines and medical devices, whereas other studies could be looking at the prevention of health problems by collecting questionnaires or blood samples.

Taking part in any research study is completely voluntary.  If you do decide to volunteer, the most important thing we consider is your freedom and safety. You will never be asked to do anything that you are not comfortable with, and you are free to say NO and to change your mind at any point.

Should you choose to take part in a research study all information collected from you will be anonymised and stored safely.  We will not give out your contact details to third parties. At no point will taking part in research affect the level of your clinical care or change the way your doctor/nurse treats you.

Contact the renal research nurses: 01245 516921 / 01245 516458

Renal unit

Haemodialysis/Renal Medicine

Ward details

The Renal Unit is open Monday-Saturday to provide an Outpatient Dialysis service for patients with advanced kidney disease. The Unit has 28 beds for  haemodialysis  and  consists of a large multi-disciplinary team including  Renal Consultants, Nurses, Renographers, Dieticians, Pharmacist, Receptionists, Medical Secretaries, Housekeepers, and a Porter.

In addition we have a four bedded acute dialysis unit on Blenheim Ward for  inpatient haemodialysis.

We also offer temporary holiday dialysis for patients from the UK away from their home, to enable patients to travel on holiday or stay with family or friends. This service can also be made available to patients who are non-UK residents

Renal Outpatient Clinics are also held on the Renal Unit Monday-Friday.

Ward telephone number: 01702 385143

Location

Rear of hospital, Renal Unit

Visiting and other instructions

There is no visiting on the Renal unit during dialysis treatment.

Patients or relatives can ask at reception, either in person or by phone, to speak to the person in charge of the unit.  If you would like to speak to the consultant, please contact their secretary - reception will be able to help you with this.

Specialist teams who care for patients on this ward

Anaemia Co-ordinators
Transplant Co-ordinator
Home therapies Team

Postal address

Renal Unit
Southend Hospital
Prittlewell Chase
Westcliff on Sea
Essex
SS0 0RY