We are delighted to have opened a fifth endoscopy room at Queen’s Hospital, taking the total across our Trust to seven.

An endoscopy is a procedure that sees an endoscope (a tube with a light and camera) inserted into a patient to examine and diagnose them.

Demand for endoscopies across Greater London is greater than capacity, so this new room will help increase diagnostics capacity at our Trust.

Sas Banerjee, Colorectal Surgeon and Endoscopy Lead for our Trust, and the Endoscopy Clinical Director for NHS England and Improvement (NSHE/I) London, said: “I am delighted about the opening of the new endoscopy room. It means patients should have their diagnostics much sooner than at present.

“Our colleagues who were doing clinical research in a room within the endoscopy unit have kindly moved out and that room has been converted and increased our capacity at Queen’s Hospital by 20 per cent, which is going to help with the demand that we are facing.

“I am very proud to be part of a department that has done amazingly well in the face of challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The entire team has pulled together and this room is just one of the things that we have achieved.”

Thangadorai Amalesh, Consultant Upper Gastrointestinal and Laparoscopic Surgeon, said: “Endoscopy is a very integral part of diagnostics because that’s how cancer gets diagnosed and a lot of patients with significant medical problems get diagnosed.

“Considering the huge backlog, we want to increase capacity so we can provide good care to our patients.”

The room was inaugurated last week, with Shelagh Smith cutting the ribbon in one of her final acts before retiring.

Among those in attendance from NHSE/I London were Louise Dark, Diagnostic Programme Director, Simon Bampfylde, Covid Response - Endoscopy Programme, and Andy Rhodes, Professor in Intensive Care Medicine and Anaesthesia, and Clinical Director Critical Care and Diagnostics.

Amalesh added: “It was great to have people from NHSE/I London visit us and it was brilliant to showcase what we’ve done so far.

“We were able to give a broader view of the entire diagnostics pathway that we have, what we achieved after the first peak, how we have responded to patients, and the changes that have been made and also the plans that we have. This included presentations from Imaging from the Cancer and Clinical Services Division, Endoscopy from Surgery Division, and Respiratory Physiology and Diagnostics from Specialist Medicine Division.

“We’re now thinking about the changes that we’ll need to bring in to tackle the huge backlogs and how we can link in to what NHSE/I London has been planning with regards to community diagnostic hubs and whether there would be an opportunity for that for our patients in outer north east London.”