No plans for kidney dialysis at new Whipps Cross hospital

The hospital’s NHS trust, Barts Health, intends to replace the three outpatient units at Whipps Cross with, it currently estimates, two new units in the community, at locations not yet decided.

Redbridge councillors this week criticised Barts for making the decision without consulting the third of their residents who use the hospital.

Barts consultant Dr Ravindra Rajakariar told the council’s health scrutiny committee on Wednesday the hospital’s 288 dialysis patients “predominantly come from Waltham Forest” and the plan is to “re-provide for those patients within the borough”.

He said: “The only dialysis in the new Whipps Cross will be emergency dialysis and we will provide in-community dialysis that will be as close as possible to patients’ homes.”

Committee vice-chair Beverley Brewer said: “This is just totally unacceptable. Patients and their carers need to be at the centre of decisions made about their care.

“The word here is ‘consultation’ and, yet again, we find ourselves in a situation where there has not been proper consultation about the closure of these services at Whipps Cross.”

The committee’s Conservative spokesperson, Suzanne Nolan, agreed, adding: “A third of Redbridge uses Whipps Cross, nearly 100,000 patients. We always seem to be losing out.”

Ceri Jacobs, managing director of Redbridge’s Clinical Commissioning Group, argued the move to in-community treatment was “actually better for patients”.

She told councillors: “People being able to do dialysis at home is a massive improvement to them in their experience of their lives day to day.

“This should reduce the need for patients to have to go to hospital. As Covid-19 shows, infection control is important and that’s another reason to keep people in their homes.”

Committee chair Neil Zammett said he did not “think anyone would disagree with that” but said: “We have sweeping changes here… I think anxieties are understandably raised.”

A report from Barts said the hospital’s current units are “not fit for purpose” and would need “costly refurbishment” within two years if they stayed where they are.

It added: “Although yet to be confirmed, it is likely that there will be two new units; one in the north and one in the south of the Whipps Cross catchment area.

“Once potential locations are known, wider community engagement will take place and will be used to inform the case for agreeing the future facilities and their locations.”

It noted that the aim to ensure all “services that can be delivered in the community should be”, also applies to “some eye services” currently offered at the hospital.

Barts plans to create a new dialysis unit at the Mile End Hospital in Tower Hamlets, although Cllr Zammett argued this would be “inaccessible” for Redbridge patients.

There are no plans to remove dialysis from King George Hospital in Ilford, which is run by Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust.

The relocation of dialysis treatment from the trust’s Queen’s Hospital to St George’s health centre, still in the early stages of planning, is intended to make way for more emergency care.