'Innovative' trans-nasal endoscopy van launches in Cornwall
The NHS Trust say the move is hoped to bring services closer to home, whilst freeing up hospital space
What’s been described as an ‘innovative’ new initiative is set to bring patient care even closer to their homes.
The Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust has launched a special van that offers patients more options, if they have to have an endoscopy.
The community trans-nasal endoscopy service is hoped to give patients more flexibility and choice on where to receive the procedure.
Not only is it bringing benefits to endoscopy patients, but the van is freeing up resourced at Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro.
It’s hoped the service will expand to two more sites by the spring.
Roz Davies, Specialist Services and Surgery General Manager, said: “Endoscopy tends to be tied to hospitals. However, with advances in mobile ventilation and decontamination of endoscopes we can deliver this service away from the acute hospital site and deliver this within treatment rooms at our fabulous community hospitals. This then allows us to undertake the larger and more complex procedures at our main acute sites in the space released.
“Trans-nasal endoscopy doesn’t need the sedation and long recovery time of other endoscopies, allowing the procedure to be completed in a different environment and community hospitals are the perfect place to deliver these procedures closer to the patients’ home.”
Roz added: “We are fortunate to have such an innovative gastroenterology team here in Cornwall that have embraced and delivered this community endoscopy service. It is a fantastic model for rural communities and certainly for our county which suffers from food, fuel and digital poverty.
“Our team has collectively worked through how to help our community and has created an inspiring concept for our patients. We are very proud of what’s been achieved, and how well the service is being received.”
RCHT patient, Guilianna Williams, said: “It was easier at Bodmin Hospital as it was local to me. The staff were so friendly and put me at ease. The environment was calm, which helped me relax, there were no side effects from the procedure, and I left pretty quickly afterwards.”
The first community trans-nasal endoscopy service is in Bodmin, but there are plans to expand the service to a further two sites in the county by spring 2024.
Endoscopy is a procedure that allows doctors to examine the lining of the food pipe, stomach and small intestine. using a thin, flexible tube, called an endoscope.