Previously patients had to travel 20 miles to Coventry's Walsgrave Hospital for treatment three times a week.

But after two years of fund-raising, a temporary unit with six dialysis machines opened at Stratford-Upon-Avon Hospital on Friday.

A permanent unit at the hospital is due to open in Spring 2005.

The vital process filters waste and removes fluid from patients with defective kidneys.

The permanent renal treatment unit, which will have eight machines, is to form part of a new medical centre which is currently being built at the hospital in Arden Street.