Hull NHS Dialysis Unit

Updated 21 July 2026

Hull NHS Dialysis Unit is run by Fresenius Medical Care Renal Services Limited, an independent healthcare provider. It is a private dialysis unit located in the grounds of Hull Royal Infirmary in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The unit mainly serves people from Hull and East Yorkshire but also accepts referrals from outside the area.

NHS England commissions the service to provide renal dialysis for NHS patients. Patients are referred by NHS trusts, mainly from a local renal unit.

The unit has 40 dialysis stations and was treating 189 patients at the time of our assessment. It uses advanced Fresenius dialysis machines to treat people with kidney failure.

The service provides haemodialysis for stable patients with end-stage renal disease. Haemodialysis removes waste and excess fluid from the blood when the kidneys can no longer do this.

The service also provides haemodialysis for acute patients, newly diagnosed or long-term haemodialysis patients who are inpatients. The unit also supports three other satellite units by providing haemodialysis to patients not suitable for treatment in a peripheral satellite unit.

The unit opens 6 days a week, Monday to Saturday, with morning and afternoon sessions. It does not provide overnight care. Staff run 2 to 3 sessions each day, including a twilight session on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Each session treats up to 36 patients, giving a maximum daily capacity of 108.

The service also provides home haemodialysis. At the time of our assessment, 2 patients were training for this.

We last inspected the service in October 2017. This assessment checked whether the provider had met the requirements of a warning notice issued after our inspection in April 2017.

After that inspection, the provider submitted an action plan to address breaches of Regulation 13 (Safeguarding) and Regulation 20 (Duty of Candour).

During this assessment, we found ongoing concerns about safeguarding and duty of candour. Staff did not have the skills or knowledge to recognise and report safeguarding concerns. Only 10% of staff had completed duty of candour training.

We also found breaches of regulation relating to medicines management and governance.

Updated 22 June 2026

Good Practice

• The service promoted home haemodialysis and shared care. Leaders were working to increase capacity and support more patients to manage their own treatment. Two patients used home dialysis machines independently, which gave them more flexibility, independence and confidence while working full time.
• The service had stable leadership. The same registered manager had been in post since 2017 and was usually on site. A deputy manager was always available when they were absent. Deputy managers led defined team areas to balance workloads. At the time of our assessment, the registered manager was developing 2 new deputies to improve resilience.

Areas for Improvement

• The provider did not ensure medicines were always prescribed, used and stored safely. Prescribing records were sometimes incomplete or unclear. We found inconsistencies in variable dosing and the use of abbreviations. Two patients had 3 incorrectly prescribed medicines across the 8 charts we reviewed (25%). We also saw a staff member falsify fridge temperature records.
• The provider did not ensure staff had the training and skills to carry out their roles safely. None of the 40 staff had completed all required training, and 11 newer staff had not completed any mandatory training. Seven of the 98 required training modules had 0% compliance, including sepsis, medicines administration and prevention of medication errors.
• The provider did not show that staff reported incidents effectively or that learning was shared. Staff and managers could not give examples of learning from incidents. Records showed 7 incidents between September and December 2025 with no evidence of learning. In some cases, incidents were not recorded using treatment variance reports.
• The registered manager was not aware of NHS England’s Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF), and the provider had not implemented it. This meant incident investigations were inconsistent and did not identify or share learning effectively.
• The provider did not ensure staff could recognise and report safeguarding concerns. Staff could not describe common types of abuse or risks to patients. Safeguarding was not discussed in team meetings, and staff were not always aware of the safeguarding lead or how to contact them.
• The provider did not manage long-term staff sickness effectively. This led to gaps in care, including missed blood test reviews and incomplete monthly reviews.
• The provider did not complete checks of emergency equipment consistently. There was no evidence of weekly checks in February 2026, and 2 daily checks were missing in April 2026, despite previous actions to improve compliance.
• The provider did not store and clean equipment and consumables safely, increasing the risk of contamination or use of unsuitable items.
• Despite a contractual requirement, the provider did not have a formal on-call policy for nursing staff.
• The provider did not keep care plans up to date. Staff did not always complete follow-up actions, and patients were not always told about clinical results such as blood tests.
• The service did not always adhere to provider governance. There was insufficient oversight of clinical and non-clinical risks.
• The provider did not identify, manage or monitor risks effectively. Staff and leaders were not aware of all key risks, including issues with prescribing and lack of pharmacy support.