ENDOSCOPY teams at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust are celebrating after their services were awarded sought-after national accreditation.
Endoscopy procedures allow clinicians to examine the inside of a patient’s body using a light source and a camera at the end of a long, thin, flexible tube, with the images relayed to a television screen. They are used to investigate a number of gastrointestinal symptoms and can also be used to remove things like polyps, helping patients to avoid surgery.
Endoscopy services at all three of the hospitals run by Hampshire Hospitals, Andover War Memorial Hospital, Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital and Royal Hampshire County Hospital, have received accreditation from the Joint Advisory Group on GI Endoscopy, known as JAG.
In order to receive this accreditation, the teams carrying out endoscopies at all three hospitals had to show a team of assessors that they were delivering the service against criteria that test quality, focusing on the patient experience.
Alex Whitfield, chief executive of Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said:
I’m delighted that we have achieved JAG accreditation at all of our hospitals and would like to say a big thank you and well done to all of the staff who played a part in making this happen.
Around 23,000 endoscopic procedures are carried out in our hospitals each year and achieving this accreditation shows that people across Hampshire are getting a very high-quality service from our dedicated teams.
PHOTO: Endoscopy teams with Alex Whitfield, chief executive at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Fourth from the right).