Consultant in Nephrology & General Medicine

Job summary

Applications are invited for the post of Consultant Physician in Nephrology and General Medicine at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. This is a replacement post to maintain the strength of the current renal service. The successful candidate will work alongside six whole time consultants, four part-time consultants, a specialist doctor and an associate specialist, with a job plan that starts at 10 PAs.

The Bradford and Airedale renal service was established in 1994. There are approximately 650,000 residents within its catchment area, including a large Asian ethnic minority population with a high prevalence of renal disease. Our aim is to provide a high quality patient-centred service for everyone who needs kidney care in the Bradford and Airedale region.

Renal services are provided by a multidisciplinary team that includes doctors, nurses (including specialist nurses for diabetes, advanced kidney disease, dialysis, dialysis access, dialysis education, renal transplantation and living kidney donation), ACPs, physician associates, dietitians, pharmacists, psychologists, dialysis technicians, research nurses, a clinical audit officer and a cultural and health improvement officer. The service continues to grow and currently supports a dialysis cohort of approximately 375 patients and a transplant cohort of approximately 425 patients.

Main duties of the job

Dialysis services include peritoneal dialysis, home haemodialysis and in-centre haemodialysis with plans to further promote shared care and self-care. Our main haemodialysis unit is situated at St Luke's Hospital. This has recently undergone significant reconfiguration and expansion to provide additional capacity, more side rooms, a shared haemodialysis care facility, a simulation training room and improved staff facilities. We have also established a new Renal Ambulatory Care Unit (RACU) in Horton Wing. There is a satellite haemodialysis unit at Skipton Hospital (20 miles to the north of Bradford) with plans for relocation and expansion. We have a dedicated acute dialysis facility for inpatients at BRI. Continuous renal replacement therapy is provided on the ICU/HDU at BRI, supervised jointly by the renal and intensive care teams. We have involved the critical care outreach nursing team in supporting the management of patients with AKI and are exploring other models of care. We have developed some bespoke renal IT resources within our laboratory management system, SystmOne and the Trust EPR.

We now have a dedicated renal ward at BRI and an adjacent home therapies area, and there are plans to further develop a renal day case facility to support patient assessment, investigation and treatment, also dialysis access surgery including fluoroscopic PD catheter insertion. There is an acute haemodialysis facility at BRI with plans for this to be expanded and relocated.

About us

We provide renal outpatient clinics at St Luke's, Airedale and Skipton Hospitals, and walk-in clinics for renal transplant recipients and other patient groups in our new RACU. An innovative e-consultation service and renal unit hub run within the local primary care electronic record system to improve communications with primary care colleagues. We run specialist clinics for patients with kidney stones, polycystic kidney disease and autoimmune conditions such as vasculitis and SLE. We have a dedicated Advanced Kidney Care service for patients with advanced CKD to support planning for renal replacement therapy and conservative care. Our collaborative work to improve chronic kidney disease management in primary care has been recognised with some prestigious awards.

A dialysis access nurse coordinates our access pathway. Vascular access cases are reviewed in vascular MDT meetings at BRI.

The service is supported by a consultant renal histopathologist who hosts a monthly CPC at BRI to review and discuss native and renal transplant biopsies.

We have strong connections with the regional transplant centres in Leeds (kidney) and Manchester (kidney pancreas). Transplant recipients are repatriated at an early stage post-transplant. There are current initiatives to promote living donation and provide educational support for our transplant recipients. We have strengthened our links with paediatric nephrology services to improve the patient experience of transition to adult services.