New £500,000 endoscopy unit opens at Halton Hospital

It means patients can now have an increased range of diagnostic and treatment services on their doorstep for the first time in five years.

An endoscopy is used to investigate unusual symptoms and to help make a plan of management and perform various forms of treatment.

An endoscope is a thin, long, flexible tube that has a light source and a video camera at one end.

Images of the inside of the body are relayed to a television screen so that the doctor or nurse can make a diagnosis or perform treatment.

Dr Sal Khalid, gastroenterologist and clinical lead for endoscopy at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The new unit is an incredibly important development for the trust and comes at a time when demand for endoscopy services is growing rapidly.

“The facility is first class and provides the best in privacy and dignity for our patients.

“Being able to introduce this new unit here at Halton is great news.

“We will be able to speed up access for GPs to refer directly to us and be able to further reduce waiting times and convenience for local patients.

“This new unit will provide us with the flexibility and capacity to continue providing the excellent care that our patients deserve and expect.

“Most importantly, it will provide access to investigations for our patients from Runcorn area avoiding the need to travel further afield.

“We’re very proud of our endoscopy services.

“The feedback we get from patients is excellent and we do everything we can to make what many people think will be an uncomfortable procedure as relaxing as is possible.

“We’ve also developed new ways of working to speed up access to our services such as introducing highly trained nurse endoscopists as part of the team.”

The 12-bed endoscopy suite has been created to provide single sex accommodation for six men and six women.

State-of-the-art equipment has been installed.

Approximately 4,500 endoscopy procedures a year are being carried out for patients from Halton.

The demand for these procedures have increased at a rate of about 10 per cent each year for last five years and are expected to continue to grow for at least 10 years.

The trust currently performs around 12,500 endoscopies a year at Warrington and will be able to increase that number with the new unit. The extra capacity will also allow the hospital to provide direct access to GPs.

A GP can refer their patient directly for an endoscopy without them having to go for an outpatient appointment at the hospital first.

It also allows the trust to provide a new national screening programme from April this year that could save thousands of lives in the future.

Men and women will be invited for bowel scope screening at the time of their 55th birthday.

This uses an examination called flexible sigmoidoscopy which looks inside the lower bowel.

The aim is to find and remove any small growths called polyps, which can develop into bowel cancer if left untreated.

Bowel cancer is one of the commonest form of cancer in the UK.

Around 1 in 17 people will get bowel cancer at some point in their lives. However, over 90% of those diagnosed can be treated successfully, if their cancer is spotted and treated early.

The trust expects to perform around 2,000 extra procedures a year with the introduction of the screening programme and the extra capacity provided by the new unit at Halton is essential to allow them to do this.

Once the unit is fully open, the team will be seeking JAG accreditation. JAG stands for Joint Advisory Group and is the national best practice standard for endoscopy services run by the Royal College of Physicians.