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Standards for Endoscopic Facilities

Endoscopic services are faced with the same pressures for cost containment as other areas of the health budget. The essential difficulty is to strike a balance between the delivery of safe and effective services and the containment of those costs to a level where significant exclusion from participation in such health services is minimised. The standards outlined here represent the professional organisations' views on what constitutes the minimum necessary facilities, equipment and staffing to deliver safe and effective endoscopy. The training and qualification of endoscopists and nursing staff, the endoscopic equipment and accessories, the reprocessing of endoscopes, monitoring and resuscitation equipment must all be of the standard specified in this document wherever endoscopy is performed.

Safe and effective Gastrointestinal Endoscopy demands the availability of:

• Adequately trained and certified endoscopists.
• Adequately trained nursing staff (see Education Section 18)
• Adequate physical facilities.
• Fully immersible endoscopes.
• Adequate supportive services including the ability to deliver oxygen and to monitor oxygen levels, adequate suction facilities and Advanced Life Support equipment.
• Paediatric endoscopists, anaesthetists and nursing staff for endoscopy in patients under 14 years of age, or those aged 14-18 years in whom there is concern over maturity to tolerate standard adult procedural sedation.