Referring to renal services/ nephrology is changing…  

In line with NHSE instructions, Renal Services at Barts Health will be adopting the Single Point of Access model 

Dear Colleagues,

From Tuesday 1st of September (01/09/26) Renal Services at Barts Health will be adopting the Single Point of Access model.

The new services on eRS will be known as:

Advice & Refer – City & Hackney Community Kidney e-Clinic

Advice & Refer – Newham Community Kidney e-Clinic

Advice & Refer – Tower Hamlets Community Kidney e-Clinic

Advice & Refer – Waltham Forest Community Kidney e-Clinic

The existing Referral Assessment Services (RAS) will be closed.

Instead, there will be an additional option: 

Advice & Refer – Renal Medicine – Barts Health NHS Trust – R1H

This is intended for use by referrers outside City & Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest wishing to refer to Barts Health Renal Services.

Why are we making these changes? 

These changes are being made to bring Renal Services into line with NHSE instructions. All consultant led services are required to move to a Single Point of Access (SPoA) for advice requests and referrals, and to phase out directly bookable services (DBS) and RAS. 

Will there be any difference in the service for referrers? 

• We hope that the new structure will be a lot simpler for referrers to navigate. 

• Apart from the name change, the main difference will be that we will no longer have access to Emis records so a clearly formatted question/ reason for referral will need to be presented. 

• The outcome of the advice request/ referral will not be in the Emis shared record and we will not be sending the outcome as a letter. Instead, the outcome will be returned via eRS in line with other advice and refer (A&R) and SPoA services. 

• You should also notice an improvement in the response time. 

What are the minimum investigations expected? 

We understand the legitimate concerns of General Practice regarding the transfer of work, and we will commit to ensuring any specialist investigations are requested by and followed up by the renal service. However, when making a referral or request for advice, we would generally expect that the following investigations have been performed and/ or are up to date: 

• Recent blood tests (renal function, bone profile & FBC) within the last 4 weeks and for patients over the age of 45, a myeloma screen (serum protein electrophoresis, immunoglobulins, serum free light chains) 

• Urine albumin: creatinine ratio & urine dipstick for haematuria  

• Blood pressure 

• if not previously performed and subject to speed of access, an ultrasound of the kidneys to define anatomy i.e. the patient has two normal sized, unobstructed kidneys. 

If you have any further questions or feedback, or need to flag inappropriate investigation requests, please e-mail BHNT.Communityrenalservice@nhs.net