Renal medicine

We are specialists in minimally invasive and complex treatments

Dialysis

Our comprehensive haemodialysis service can accommodate overseas patients. Treatment is provided in our nurse-led dialysis centre using the latest Braun dialysis machines. You’ll find it a short walk from Guy’s Hospital. It opens daily, with availability for evening slots.

Vascular access procedures

Our vascular access operations include radiocephalic and brachiocephalic fistulae, grafts, and complex cases where access is difficult. Our programme is supported by an excellent interventional radiology service.

Our children’s vascular access service has an international reputation, and we have developed and run several national studies in novel approaches to access.

Complex renal transplants

Our renal service specialises in complex transplant cases and perform around 300 transplants a year, including living donor adult and children’s transplants, as well as pancreatic transplants.

Our living donor transplant programme is one of the largest and most successful in Europe, with a one-year graft survival rate of 99%.

Our children’s transplant programme is one of the largest in the world. We see many children who have been turned down for transplantation elsewhere, particularly due to vascular complexities.

We have the UK’s largest antibody incompatible transplant programme and the only such programme for children. We also performed the first robotic transplants in the UK and have the largest experience of laparoscopic (keyhole) donor surgery in the country, with over 1,300 cases performed and a conversion rate of 0.4%.

We run several multi-centre research trials in transplantation and are at the forefront of developing new technologies and therapeutic interventions for the benefit of all patients.

Advancing innovation in care

Our international reputation for kidney transplantation is built on our commitment to innovation. We are:

• home to the largest and most active living kidney donation programme in the UK
• the first centre in the UK to have a living donor transplant programme
• the first centre in the UK to perform robotic kidney transplantation
• the largest centre for antibody incompatible transplantation in the UK
• the largest laparoscopic (keyhole) donor programme in the UK

We are allied with the Medical Research Council Centre for Transplantation, giving us the opportunity to fulfil our commitment to research and remain at the forefront of clinical research in our field.

We are also renowned for pioneering the use of robotic technology in the UK and to this day continue to perform revolutionary procedures. This includes:

• our transplant surgeons being the first in the world to use 3D printing to successfully transplant an adult donor kidney into a child
• our renal team being the first in the UK (second in Europe) to use the advanced da Vinci robot to perform keyhole surgery to implant donor kidneys into patients