A specialist commissioning review by National Health Service England has formally designated the Cambridge Centre for Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplant (CamCIRT) as a regional centre to manage patients.
Addenbrooke’s Hospital runs one of the longest established nutrition support teams in the UK, providing home parenteral nutrition (HPN) to patients with severe intestinal failure for the last 20 years.
Dr Charlotte Rutter, Clinical Lead for Intestinal Rehabilitation said: “We provide a multi-disciplinary service to patients with intestinal failure as a consequence of a wide variety of diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, or complications of surgery or cancer, who are unable to eat and drink to maintain their nutrition and hydration.
There are increasing numbers of patients requiring HPN in the UK and the number of patients under our care has expanded by 237 per cent since 2014. We are thrilled to be recognised as a regional centre and will continue to accept referrals from hospital clinicians locally in Addenbrooke’s, as well as the rest of East Anglia, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.
Dr Charlotte Rutter
The Intestinal Rehabilitation team comprises of physicians, surgeons, dietitians, nurses and pharmacists with specialist skills in nutrition and intestinal failure, supporting patients to live at home on HPN as well as assessing and providing complex rehabilitation surgery to enable some patients to stop HPN and eat and drink again. It looks after 150 HPN patients and is one of 18 centres designated in England, with St Mark’s Hospital as our National Reference Centre.
This service used to be known as Intestinal Failure, however following feedback from patients and staff it has been re-named as Intestinal Rehabilitation, which has a more positive connotation for patients.
Eating and drinking are a necessity for life. For patients unable to do so, CamCIRT provides a life-supporting service and designation will enable the Intestinal Rehabilitation team to enhance and develop the services we provide for this small and under-recognised patient group.