Bradford's kidney disease service has plans to expand to meet the rising need for dialysis in the city.

Kidney specialist Dr Robin Jeffrey said he hoped the dialysis unit at St Luke's Hospital in the city would expand by three machines - there are currently 14 there, plus five in a satellite unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

The city is seeing an increase of ten per cent of patients each year who need dialysis for severe kidney failure. There are about 130 patients on dialysis, plus about 20 who go to Leeds and about 100 kidney failure patients who have had transplants.

And with diabetes a major cause of kidney disease, Bradford's Asian community - which has high levels of diabetes - is being particularly hard hit, Dr Jeffrey said.

"Asian patients have five times as much renal disease," he said. He added the city overall has a high rate of severe kidney disease leading to a need for dialysis-- the British figure shows 80 new patients need dialysis per million of population each year, but the Bradford figure stands at 110 per million.

"To keep someone on dialysis for a year costs £28,000. Without that treatment they die," he said.

Haemodialysis means a patient has to spend a period of a number of hours on a machine three times a week, with the machine undertaking the work of the failed kidneys.

Dr Jeffrey is also hoping to recruit a third kidney consultant to join him and colleague Dr Alan Webb. Bradford's service is set to take on the care of Airedale patients from April, transferring them from the care of Leeds doctors, and Dr Jeffrey says an extra consultant is needed.

Funding for expansion is under discussion, as are plans for a third specialist.

The issue of the rising need for kidney dialysis in the city is also being raised by Bradford's health watchdog, the Community Health Council.

Its chairman Barrie Scholfield said he had chaired a conference in York which heard about the alarming year-on-year rise in the disease.

"There is concern in that particular area," he said. "We need to ask are the finances available to meet that demand, and is the forward planning in place for this service, as well as the need for more donors and donor cards?"