Charity helps to make navigating test easier

The new Scope Guide, which cost £41,537, is used by the consultant, doctor or specialist nurse performing the endoscopy, including colonoscopy, to help them navigate the endoscope around the bowel.

An endoscope is a long, thin, flexible tube fitted with a small camera that is passed into the body through a natural opening such as the mouth or anus. It enables clinicians to examine the bowel to help them make a diagnosis and undertake procedures such as biopsies in which tissue samples are collected for testing and to remove polyps.

The Scope Guide sits next to the patient and by state-of-the-art technology is able to show where the endoscope is at each stage of the test to optimise diagnostic potential. As the Scope Guide supports the endoscopist, helping him or her negotiate the natural looping of the bowel, it may also reduce patient discomfort and potentially speed up the procedure.

Sue Swire, fundraising manager for Rosemere Cancer Foundation, said: “We are delighted to support the Vic’s endoscopy team and the patients using their service by providing this piece of equipment. Hopefully, it will help to improve the experience of both performing and undergoing endoscopies.”

Rosemere Cancer Foundation works to bring world class cancer treatments and services to cancer patients from throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria being treated at Rosemere Cancer Centre, Lancashire and South Cumbria’s regional specialist cancer treatment and radiotherapy centre at the Royal Preston Hospital, and also at another eight local hospital cancer units across the two counties, including that at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

The charity funds cutting-edge equipment like the Scope Guide, clinical research, staff training and innovative services and initiatives that the NHS cannot afford in order to make patients’ cancer journey more effective, comfortable and stress-free. For further information on its work, including how to make a donation, visit www.rosemere.org.uk