Senior Sister Tracy Glew and Gareth Johnson MP cut the ribbon
On Friday 27 October, the Trust was elated to welcome Gareth Johnson MP and Adam Holloway MP to Darent Valley Hospital to mark the official opening of our newly expanded haemodialysis service on Redwood ward.
The Trust recently completed a successful three-year project whereby patients under the care of our Renal department can now receive haemodialysis at their bedside.
The need for this system became apparent in 2021, when the Trust reported a total of 1092 haemodialysis sessions had been completed. This meant that full capacity had been reached within the two hospital rooms allocated and designed for this treatment.
The two dedicated rooms can cater for four full four-hour dialysis treatments, with 40-minute machine decontamination cycle in between each patient (in line with Renal and manufacturer standard guidelines), with one additional emergency 2-hour slot available for urgent fluid offload or emergency treatment of hyperkalaemia a day.
A standard haemodialysis treatment lasts four hours, three times per week. As capacity became more challenging for the staff to meet the growing demands of the service, it was identified as a potential risk.
To ensure the service was performing optimally and meeting patient demand, a business case led by Senior Sister, Tracy Glew, was approved to increase the haemodialysis capacity by enabling the treatment to occur at the patient’s bedside. This required extensive plumbing work and specialist water purification equipment to perform the treatment.
In enabling haemodialysis to be performed at the bedside, the anticipated benefits are:
- Promoting getting the right patient to the right bed, improving the patient experience and reducing length of stay.
- More than one patient can receive haemodialysis at a time - up to four patients can now receive this treatment at once, instead of two.
- Patients will be able to receive a quality service and treatment for their renal failure, as we will not have to safely compromise treatment times to cater for emergencies.
Speaking about the initiative, Tracy Glew said: “This three-year project has needed dedication, resilience and hard work to get it finally off the ground. I have learnt a lot about plumbing through this project! We are proud of the service we have and are excited to move forward, expand and flourish putting the Renal team on the map at long last!”
The Trust would like to thank Tracy and all those involved for their hard work in vastly improving this service that will undoubtedly greatly improve the experience and outcomes of our patients.