Endoscopy Safety
Dr Srivathsan Ravindran

Guts UK and the BSG are awarding Dr Ravindran at St Mark’s Hospital £3,775 to develop an endoscopy incident reporting tool that takes the patient voice into account.

What is an endoscopy?

An endoscopy involves using a flexible camera to look at your digestive system e.g. via the throat or the rectum. Over 2,000,000 procedures are performed in the UK every year.

What do we know already?

Though endoscopies rarely lead to a patient being harmed, every time this occurs it is reported through an indicent reporting system. This helps the NHS to learn from mistakes and take action to keep patients safe. However, issues with safety still occur during endoscopy that are not reported within the current system.

What does the research aim to do?

Dr Ravindran believes that this current incident reporting method could be improved by adding the missing link; the patient voice. The patients are the ones undergoing the treatment, and previous research shows that patients are able to pick up on incidents that are otherwise missed. Patients also see things from a different perspective, so Dr Ravindran proposes the development of a new system for patients to report safety incidents during an endoscopy.

How will Dr Ravindran carry out his research?

Dr Ravindran will explore whether there are any current methods involving patients that can identify safety incidents in endoscopy. He will investigate published scientific literature to discover how other healthcare providers may rely on patients to report safety incidents.

After gathering all existing information, he will organise meetings with patients who have had experiences of endoscopy. He hopes that involving more patients in this discussion will help him in developing and refining the tool.

How might this benefit future patients?

After heavy patient input, Dr Ravindran hopes to generate a new tool to report endoscopy safety incidents. This may result in more frequent and more accurate reporting, which can only assist in making endoscopies safer and improving patient care.

“Guts UK and the BSG are giving me the opportunity to involve a wider range of patients in my research. Through collaborating with them, I hope to gain unique insights into the safety of endoscopies and ultimately, improve how we detect these incidents. If the tool is successful, it would lead to more incidents being reported, and more accuracy too. This in turn would lead to us learning how to make endoscopies safer and improve patient care”.

Our guts have been underfunded, undervalued and underrepresented for decades. Guts UK’s research leads to earlier diagnoses, kinder treatments and ultimately, a cure.

Help the UK get to grips with guts by donating to Guts UK today.