Hepatology and Liver Disease (GP information)

Background

The Bedfordshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust provides a Hepatology clinical service covering all aspects of liver disease, with dedicated liver clinics as well as dedicated endoscopy lists for Variceal treatment and surveillance.

Various liver diseases such as alcoholic and non-alcoholic liver disease, Autoimmune hepatitis as well as metabolic liver disease (such as iron or copper overload conditions) can be managed at the Bedfordshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Treatment for hepatitis B and hepatitis C are also available at this District General Hospital.

The Hepatology team also has strong well-established links with Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, where complex liver patients, including those with acute liver failure, liver cancers and potential candidates for a liver transplant are referred.

Joint Liver clinics with the Hepatology team from Addenbrookes are conducted regularly, where potential transplant candidates can be assessed at an early stage and patients who have already been transplanted are followed up. Joint clinics are also conducted with Genito-urinary medicine for patients with viral hepatitis & HIV.

We have three experienced Hepatology consultants at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital site and a dedicated Nursing and Advanced Care Practitioners team that work directly with the Hepatology Consultants, to provide excellence of care for patients with chronic liver disease.

Our Team:

• Dr Sambit Sen – Cross-site Hepatology Lead / Hepatology Consultant
• Dr Pooja Khanna – Clinical Lead for Gastroenterology and Hepatology / Hepatology Consultant
• Dr Meha Bhuva – Hepatology Consultant
• Luis Neto Pereira – Lead Hepatology Clinical Nurse Specialist
• Shahnaz Begum – Advanced Care Practitioner for Hepatology
• Therese Moore – Viral Hepatitis Nurse Specialist
• Anette David – Hepatology Research Nurse
• Rina Angosta – FibroScan Technician

The services we provide include:

• General Hepatology Clinics
• Transplant Clinics and Joint transplant Liver clinics with tertiary centre (Addenbrooke’s Hospital)
• Viral co-infection clinic – Joint Clinics with Genito-urinary medicine
• Rapid Access Liver Hot Clinic
• Metabolic/ genetic liver disease clinic
• One-stop-shop NAFLD clinic
• JAG accredited Diagnostic and Therapeutic Endoscopy services for patients with Liver disease
• Elective Paracentesis service
• FibroScan service
• Liver biopsies
• Hepatitis C case findings and Community Treatment (Drug and Alcohol services, prisons, etc)
• Research

Research

Research plays a vital role in improving outcomes by increasing our understanding of health and disease. This is done by developing and refining evidence-based interventions and enhancing service delivery. Our Hepatology team is actively involved in studies and research. You may ask during your appointment, if there are ongoing studies that you may qualify.

Current ongoing research studies – UK-PBC, UK- PSC, ASEPTIC, NAFLD BioResource

Useful resources

Please follow these links for more information about Liver Disease and Hepatology:

• British Liver Trust
• Addenbrookes Hospital
• British Association for the Study of Liver
• The Hepatitis C Trust
• PBC Foundation
• PSC Support
• AIH Support

How you feel about your care is really important to us. We have a patient feedback form and we would like to hear from you about the good work, but also what is not so good, to help us improve our services and the care we provide for our patients.

Please visit the survey page or scan the QR code and help us learning with your experience:

If you have any queries or concerns about your liver disease, please email or call the Gastroenterology/Hepatology secretaries via ldh-tr.gastrosecretaries@nhs.net or 01582 718 028 / 01582 497 508.