The impact of national guidelines on the waiting list for colonoscopy: a quantitative clinical audit

Objective: to assess the compliance of the surveillance colonoscopy waiting list with ACPGBI/BSG guidelines for colonoscopy follow-up and to measure the impact of adjusting referrals to be inline with the guidelines.Design and Setting: this is a quantitative five-stage clinical audit cycle involving a large patient cohort from the Kent and Medway Cancer Network, which includes seven hospitals across four NHS Hospital Trusts and an estimated population of 1.8 million.Participants: 3020 patients were waiting for a surveillance colonoscopy. Their notes were reviewed and the indications for colonoscopy were compared with the ACPGBI/BSG 2002 guidelines.Interventions: those patients whose referral to the surveillance colonoscopy waiting list was not found to be compliant were adjusted to be inline with the guidelines.Main outcome measures: the impact of adjusting the surveillance colonoscopy waiting list on the diagnostic colonoscopy service was assessed by measuring the average waiting times for a colonoscopy before and after the intervention.Results: around 22% (n = 664) of surveillance colonoscopy referrals were inline with the guidelines, 51% (n = 1540) could be cancelled from the list and 27% (n = 816) could be given a new date. Implementing these recommendations reduced the average wait for a diagnostic colonoscopy from 76.8 to 56.0 days (P = 0.0022).Conclusion: following guidelines for surveillance colonoscopy can reduce waiting times for diagnostic colonoscopy. This allows a faster patient journey for diagnostic colonoscopy and a uniform plan for duration and frequency of surveillance colonoscopy. However, this action promoted serious debate on the social, moral and ethical issue