Safety and quality of endoscopy at The London Clinic
The London Clinic
Endoscopy Unit has an excellent safety
record.
Like all procedures, the various kinds of
endoscopy performed in our unit have risks which must be taken into
account and discussed with patients before any procedure.
As a healthcare team, we have worked very hard
to minimise these risks. For more than eight years, we have
systematically kept meticulous records of complications which show
that our colon perforation rate is very low compared to the overall
perforation rate of 1:750 in the BSG National Audit of Colonoscopy.
For example, our team of expert consultants had no perforations in
over 3700 examinations in 2007.
Also in the BSG National Audit of Colonoscopy,
our rate of total colonoscopy (reaching the caecum and identifying
the terminal ileum) was 96%. This compares well with a total
colonoscopy rate of about 75% for the whole study.
The other uncommon but potentially major
complication of colonoscopy is bleeding after removal of a polyp,
which may occur up to two weeks after the event. Our
consultants minimise the risk of bleeding, but in our last
yearly audit of 3,716 colonoscopies, our unit had 8
minor events which did not require admission or intervention, and 5
moderate bleeds requiring admission or another procedure to stop
the bleeding.
ERCP is generally accepted to have a relatively
high complication rate, but our expert endoscopists have had only
one or two complications per year for the last three years in a
total of about 200 procedures per year.
We consistently monitor any complications and
feed back this data to the endoscopists. This analysis enables us
to monitor and rectify any changes in performance
immediately. Therefore, patients coming to The London Clinic
can be assured that endoscopic procedures performed here are
more expertly and safely performed than in many other hospitals
around the world.