Renal (Kidney) Service

The Richard Bright Renal Service at Southmead Hospital Bristol, part of North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT), is the largest of its kind in the South West of England.

It carries out more than 100 kidney transplants every year and has led the way with laparoscopic kidney transplants (keyhole surgery), spousal donation and non-heart beating donor transplants. The unit is also pioneering techniques to enable highly sensitised patients and recipients and donors with incompatible blood groups to have a live kidney transplant.

Southmead Hospital has been at the forefront of the living kidney transplant programme for many years and has some of the best success rates in the country. We are also the UK’s largest referring unit for the pancreatic transplants – one of only six hospitals in England to provide islet transplantation.

More than 430 patients receive dialysis at Southmead or one of our satellite units in Bath, Weston-super-Mare, Southmead, South Bristol, Taunton and Frome. A new unit has opened at Cossham Hospital in Kingswood.

We are also leading the way in home dialysis treatment, offering patients the option of dialysing at home with a dedicated team of staff to support them.

Our paediatric transition service helps young people make the often difficult move from treatment at children’s facilities to the adult facilities at Southmead.

The service has a superb national and international reputation and is the only hospital outside of London to have had two consecutive presidents of the Renal Association working with us. We have a dedicated team of nurses, doctors and transplant co-ordinators to ensure all patients have the best experience we can offer.