The renal unit at Heartlands Hospital has undergone a major refurbishment to create an improved facility for patients and staff.

The Glaxo Renal Unit was closed to patients for three months while it was given its first makeover for 15 years.

Outpatient dialysis patients were treated at community satellite units during this time but now the new-look unit is open and is treating kidney patients again.

Improvements included much-needed environmental changes such as decorating, new flooring and automatic doors in the haemodialysis rooms. The outpatient facility where patients come to be trained on how to do peritoneal dialysis at home has also been refurbished with a much better and patient-friendly layout.

There is now extra side room capacity for patients, a better waiting area and a new kitchen area. 

The work also allowed the creation of inpatient haemodialysis capacity on Ward 3 to support reduction in delays to treatment and to reduce length of stay.

The work costing about £550,000 has been paid for by the Glaxo Renal Unit charitable fund.

Around 1,350 patients attend the unit every month and there are 130 members of staff based there. It opened in 1994 and was extended in 2003 but has been in need of improvement.

Patients and staff who have been impressed by the work have praised a much brighter and airier unit.

Matron Annette Dodds, who has worked on the unit for 22 years, praised the 35 staff who had to move out of their usual base at Heartlands to one of the satellite units while the work was carried out.

She said: “The teamwork among the staff has been phenomenal and has helped make this happen.”

Colleague Carol Hughes, a long-serving sister on the unit, added: “It’s wonderful, lovely clean, fresh and more spacious.”

The first patients to be treated back on the revamped unit were also impressed with what they saw. Richard Seal, of Sutton Coldfield, was in the new outpatient facility where patients are given training on how they can use dialysis at home, said: “It looks tremendous.”

The refurbishment has:

• Provided an optimised environment for both chronic and acute patient care
• Met the needs of environmental and infection control standards
• Provided an additional side room for the isolation of chronic patients with positive virology
• Created an environment with improved patient privacy and dignity, including the separation of chronic and acute patients
• It should also improve patient flow of inpatients requiring dialysis

The revamp will help the unit deal with increased growth and demand for services since 2015. There has been a 128 per cent rise in home therapy patients since 2015 and an 18% increase in Glaxo Renal Unit based outpatient dialysis.