PATIENTS TO SWALLOW MINIATURE PILL-SIZED CAMERAS TO DIAGNOSE BOWEL CANCER

Sat 13 March 2021:

Innovation in NHS self-care will see patients in England swallow tiny cameras instead of having standard endoscopy.

People will be able to check if they have bowel cancer by swallowing a tiny capsule containing miniature cameras, in an extension of patient self-care, according to The Guardian.

In what experts described as a trend towards more NHS at-home care, hastened by the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of people in England will be able to avoid the discomfort of having a camera inserted into their bowel by instead swallowing a capsule the size of a cod liver oil tablet.

Pictures transmitted from inside their body during the painless procedure will help doctors judge whether the person has bowel cancer, the second deadliest form of the disease in the UK.

The boss of the NHS in England said the procedure, known as a colon capsule endoscopy, is an example of medicine increasingly deployed to improve care. One of the country’s top doctors said the capsules illustrated a major shift of healthcare out of hospitals that will see more and more diagnosis and treatment of illness done at home.

“As we come out of ‘peak Covid’ and the disruption of the pandemic, the NHS is now pushing ahead with genuine innovation to expand services for many other conditions. That’s why we’re now trialing these ingenious capsule cameras to allow more people to undergo cancer investigations quickly and safely,” said Sir Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England.