Congratulations to our three Bowel Cancer Screening Endoscopists, Steve Hodge, Hassan (Mohammad) Bholah and Kim Clifford. They’ve all achieved Optical Diagnosis (OD) accreditation at their first attempt, which in the long term will help reduce the workload for our pathology colleagues.

What is Optical Diagnosis (OD)?

OD involves a Colonoscopist making an optical diagnosis of small polyps (small clumps of cells). They are required to record the polyps with photographic documentation, using both white and blue light imaging, before discarding the samples rather than sending them to Histopathology.

To achieve accreditation they attended an intensive training day which concluded with an exam that they successfully passed.

 Adopting Optical Diagnosis (OD) should:  

• significantly reduce the burden on Histopathology services, so they have the capacity to offer a faster turnaround for other histology samples
• promote green endoscopy by substantially reducing use of consumables, giving cost savings at both local and national screening centres 

Bowel Cancer Screening Programme Manager, Kath Thorpe, said:” To have three accredited OD clinicians at CHFT, and at the first time of asking, is amazing, so, really well done.

"They are invaluable to the Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (BCSP) service and for the Trust as a whole. They have already sat a very difficult accreditation process to become a BCSP endoscopist, so to achieve this as well at the first attempt shows just how skilled they all are.”