2 October 2025

Patients are receiving high quality, safe care that meets national best practice standards when using SaTH’s endoscopy services.

The services at Princess Royal Hospital in Telford and Royal Shrewsbury Hospital have been awarded accreditation from the Joint Advisory Group (JAG) on adult gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy.

The JAG accreditation programme works with endoscopy services nationally to improve the quality of patient care. Accreditation is awarded to services which have demonstrated they meet best practice quality standards covering all aspects of an endoscopy service including quality and safety, patient experience and workforce.

There are different types of endoscopy, which is a medical procedure that allows clinicians to look inside the body to diagnose conditions, take tissue samples and provide treatment.

Thousands of procedures are carried out each year at both hospitals, including colonoscopies, flexible sigmoidoscopies and CT colonographies.

The JAG team concluded that the services met accreditation standards, with their summary including areas that demonstrated excellent achievement:

  • Clean, light and airy environments
  • High quality multi-disciplinary teams who are dedicated to providing a high quality, patient centred service
  • All the staff are proud of the units they work in, and are passionate about the quality of the care delivered in both units
  • New starters have a dedicated period of being supernumerary which demonstrates commitment to training
  • The development of a large team of clinical endoscopists to diversify the workforce and take on additional roles enabling early implementation of Transnasal Endoscopy lists and provision of colon capsules

Dr Jeffrey Butterworth, Consultant and Medical Lead for Endoscopy Services, said: “This is an important recognition of the quality of endoscopy services provided to the people of Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and mid Wales. It is an acknowledgement of the huge effort of so many people to help ensure that the process of delivering high quality and safe endoscopy services meets national standards. Congratulations to all involved.”

Dr John Jones, Medical Director, said: “This is a huge achievement and testament to the hard work, dedication, and collaboration of all of the team. This accolade isn’t easy to achieve and recognises their commitment to provide the best possible care for our patients. JAG also made some recommendations to further enhance the experience and care of our patients, and we will be reviewing these with our teams.”