Renal Dialysis Care service profile
The hospital based specialist renal team provides a regional renal service for patients in Mid and West 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.
-
We also offer pre kidney transplantation workup and post kidney transplantation follow up.
-
Weekly clinics are held at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, St Peters Hospital in Maldon, Braintree Community Hospital and Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow. 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
Court Road
Broomfield Hospital
Court Road
Chelmsford CM1 7ET
Tel: 01245 514208/4203
Fax: 01245 514247
We are located on the second floor of the new PFI building and our wayfinder number is 208.
Referrals
Referrals to the renal clinics should be made via the GP to ‘The Consultant Nephrologist’ at the address above, or faxing to 01245 514426.
Consultants
Dr Sumith Abeygunasekara (Tel: 01245 514414) Lead Clinician
Secretary: Lynn Greaves. Tel 01245 514414
-
Special interest in Peritoneal Dialysis, Hypertension, Acute Kidney Injury, Renal Transplantation and chronic kidney disease.
Dr Galil Ali (Tel: 01245 514590)
Secretary: Sheila Stokes.
Dr Anthony Chan (Tel: 01245 515115)
Secretary: Lynn Greaves. Tel 01245 514414
Lead Nurse
Responsibilities include the leadership, co-ordination and supervision of the nephrology nursing teams and nursing services.
Becki Culpin manages the Renal Unit as the Lead Nurse.
Tel: 01245 514430
Senior Sisters
Senior Haemodialysis (HD) Sister: Shiny Singh
Tel: 01245 514203
The senior sister manages the day to day running of the Haemodialysis Unit, under the leadership of the Lead Nurse.
Senior Home Therapies (HT, formerly PD) Sister: Jennie Knight
Tel: 01245 516563
The senior sister manages the day to day running of the Home Therapies Unit, under the leadership of the Lead Nurse.
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 (5pm start). We promote self care and our multidisciplinary disciplinary team meet regularly to discuss each patient’s condition
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. The home therapies team also carry out house calls, when appropriate, and we run an out of hours service for these patients with any problems or queries.
The Home Therapies specialist nurses follow patients through from pre-dialysis, support patients at home and monitor the efficacy and suitability of their treatment.
We are working towards being able to offer patients the choice of Home Haemodialysis (HHD) in the future.
Access & Transplantation Services
Clinical Nurse Specialist: Veronica Smith
Tel: 01245 514330
-
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. Post transplant clinics are run on a Friday morning within the renal unit.
-
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.
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 “EPO 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 ongoing 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.
Inpatient Renal Services
We manage a wide variety of Acute Kidney Injury and other patients with Nephrological problems. We have facilities for acute dialysis, renal biopsies and line insertions. The medical team includes three Renal Consultants who are available for daily assessments. The dialysis unit works closely with the medical ward (A.3.4) in caring for renal patients and the 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.
Nutrition & Dietetics
We have a full time specialist renal dietician who cares for all dialysis patients; Haemodialysis (HD), nephrology outpatients, home therapy dialysis (HT) and ward A.3.4 inpatients. Responsibilities include giving individualised dietary support and advice to patients and their families based on monitoring of blood results.
The renal service is supported by:
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)
-
Out of hours on call service.
-
Telephone advice for admission avoidance and treatment titration
-
Telephone advisory service for patients and Primary care health care professionals.
-
Education programme for Low clearance patients, including haemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis and transplantation.
-
Continuous renal function monitoring.
-
Education for both primary and secondary staff
-
Nephrology support for other specialities.
-
Access to Renal Patient View for patients under our Nephrology Team: Contact Pamela Ayling (pamela.ayling@meht.nhs.uk) for further details.
-
We also benefit from a close working mutually beneficial relationship with the Diabetic Team.
Powered by EasySite™