Highlights from this issue

Abstract

This is an important paper reflecting endoscopy practice in the UK in the year prior to the pandemic and will be an invaluable resource in the (ongoing) planning of how best to re-establish and where appropriate reconfigure services. The headline for me was that there were more than two million gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures performed by more than 5000 endoscopists in 2019 and that is likely to reflect under reporting (census returned by 322/471 centres). Predictably more procedures were done by more people than reported in the last census in 2017. The interesting data set will be the numbers for 2020 and 2021 and to reflect on how the restrictions faced during the pandemic will impact on services moving forward including the challenging question as to whether all the procedures done previously will still be considered necessary with the practice changes we have all had to make (see page 451).