DOCTORS and patients have warned that a visionary neighbourhood centre is under threat.

Cash-strapped health chiefs are eyeing up the Peckwater Centre in Kentish Town as a new home for the Mary Rankin Dialysis Unit.

The unit, which treats 72 renal and kidney failure patients, is being forced out of its home at St Pancras Hospital because of a major development there.

The Peckwater was purpose-built in the mid-90s following an NHS campaign to build a centre that brought together health and social care services under one roof.

In a cul-de-sac of the Peckwater estate, it provides mental health crisis assessments, service for people with wheelchairs and a memory loss clinic – while also working alongside health workers at the Caversham.

Dr Kevin Clarkson, a partner at the GP Practice, said: “Our beef is that if this goes ahead Kentish Town is going to lose something that is so important for the community.

“In the mid-90s, the partnership here fought for the centre to be built on the site that was originally going to be flogged off for flats.

“Pretty much exactly what they wanted to happen there is happening there. The services there are all working together.

“We have a lovely wee garden. “We think it’s better for Kentish Town that the building serves the purpose it was built for.”

He added: “It just feels short term, and not in the interests in Kentish Town – that is why we will be pushing back.”

Dr Clarkson said the doctors at the practice were in discussion with the Royal Free and North Central London Integrated Care Board, but “it feels like they’ve got a plan and we are struggling to push back”.

He warned there would be “substantial opposition” if the proposals turned into concrete plans, adding that he understood the dialysis unit was a “really important, life-saving service” for thousands of people and that it “had to go somewhere”.

The New Journal understands that the NHS has indicated services could move into the Kentish Town Heath Centre, in Bartholomew Road.

But only one small room is currently available at that location, doctors said.

A statement from the Caverhsam GP Patient Participation Group said: “Those making the decision must come clean – which they have not done so far – about their cost analyses and their reasons for focusing on the Peckwater Centre.

“The failure to do so is bound to create suspicion that they wish simply to find the cheapest and easiest solution for the dialysis unit, without giving any consideration to the effects on the primary care system or on the wider interests of the community as a whole.”

Dialysis units help kidney failure patients who have to spend several hours a week hooked up to machines.

The New Journal recently reported on how daily biscuits, tea and toast for dialysis patients at the Mary Rankin had been axed. St Pancras Hospital is being bulldozed as part of a huge regeneration involving Moorfields Hospital.

The King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership (KCCLP) and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust (C&I), part of the North London Mental Health Partnership (NLMHP), are launching a third round of consultation on the proposals for redeveloping the St Pancras Hospital site with 110 new homes.

An NCL Integrated Care Board spokesperson said: “Options for services that need to relocate locally as part of the transformation of the St Pancras hospital site continue to be appraised by partners.

“There are no proposals which impact on the Caversham Group Practice or the continued delivery of general practice services from that premises.”

And a Royal Free London spokesperson added: “Due to the ongoing works at the St Pancras Hospital site, we are working hard to identify a new, permanent location for our Kidney and Diabetes Centre (the Mary Rankin Unit), which would deliver the very best care in the most appropriate setting.

“This is an ongoing process and no decisions have yet been made.”