HSC plans weekend clinics to ‘blitz’ endoscopy waiting lists

There are currently 430 patients waiting for an endoscopy – three times the pre-pandemic figure.

Health & Social Care has gone out to tender to help clear the list, inviting clinicians to run weekend endoscopy clinics to help clear the current backlog.

Medical director Dr Peter Rabey said that staff at the hospital and Medical Specialist Group were working hard to get through waiting lists, but did not have the capacity to get it down to manageable levels. The list has reduced by some 60 people since March 2021.

‘This waiting list initiative will mean we can effectively “blitz” the waiting list, using off-island resources,’ he said.

‘Once we are back on track we have the capacity on-island to accommodate routine and urgent referrals alongside the bowel cancer screening programme.’

HSC saw an increase in people on the waiting list as a result of the Covid pandemic.

Endoscopy waiting lists were particularly affected by Covid as the procedure generates aerosols, and at the height of the pandemic the procedure was restricted to only urgent cases.

Colonoscopies, the type of endoscopy used to examine the large intestine, are particularly important for the diagnosis of bowel cancer.

The charity Bowel Cancer Guernsey welcomed the waiting- list initiative.

Chairwoman Anne Brouard said she hoped it would mean that those with symptoms who had been waiting a long time for a colonoscopy would get an appointment early next year.

‘We are hopeful that screening will be able to re-commence once the symptomatic people have had their appointments,’ she said.

‘We appreciate there is a national shortage of gastroenterologists, so securing a permanent gastroenterologist locally is proving to be very difficult and taking longer than expected.

‘The waiting list initiative should clear the backlog of people waiting and mean that the gastroenterology service and screening can return to normal using locums while work continues to find a permanent person for the role.

‘It is important that islanders are not put off from taking action and the charity urges anyone who has symptoms or concerns regarding their health to visit their GP.’

The States has currently placed the bowel cancer screening programme on hold. It said that there was no point running a screening programme for a healthy population when there was no obvious means of diagnosing a condition found from a test.