Endoscopy services at Stepping Hill Hospital have been improved with new and enhanced facilities on the hospital site.

The hospital’s state-of-the-art new endoscopy unit was recently opened by Stockport NHS Foundation Trust’s Chief Executive Karen James OBE and Chair Professor Tony Warne. Endoscopy staff are now using it to be provide treatment for greater numbers of patients.

Thousands of endoscopy (internal medical examination) procedures are carried out at Stepping Hill Hospital each year, including colonoscopies, gastroscopies, broncoscopies and more. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a backlog of cases, and while this has been reduced, the number of procedures needed is still growing each year.

The endoscopy unit now has four procedure rooms, when previously there was three. It also has two separate recovery areas, one for men and one for women, an increase from the previous one, which had to be used alternately. With a 33% increase in capacity, many more procedures per year will now be possible, with an estimated increase from 13,500 a year to 18,000 a year.

This will also reduce help to reduce waiting times for patients, to meet the national standards of two weeks for urgent (including suspected cancer) and six weeks for routine referrals.

Just over £3m was spent on the new suite, which has all the latest facilities for providing high quality diagnosis for a wide variety of conditions.

Wisam Jafar, Stockport NHS Foundation Trust Clinical Director for Gastroenterology said “It’s fantastic that the refurbished endoscopy unit is now up and running, and providing the high quality treatment and diagnosis which our patients need. With more rooms and capacity than before the endoscopy unit will support us in meeting our increasing demand.”