Applications to become a BCSP screening colonoscopist are made online through the Bowel Cancer Screener Accreditation (BCSA) website.
There are two stages to this process, first, an endoscopist must apply to become a candidate, then an application needs to be completed, submitted and approved in order to take an assessment.
Colonoscopy candidate criteria and application process:
Criteria
To become a colonoscopy candidate, the following criteria must be met:
- Candidates must be fully registered with the General Medical Council (GMC) or appropriate professional body and must be in good standing. It is not necessary for an endoscopist in the programme to be a nurse or doctor, but they must be registered as a health care professional. This means that they must be able to work unsupervised and take upon themselves responsibility for their own professional actions and practice.
- Candidates must be attached to a screening centre.
- Have a permanent contract within the NHS for at least 12 months
- If the candidate is a pre-CCT trainee, they are required to provide evidence they have Deanery Permission to apply to be a BCSP Bowel Scope Screening Endoscopist.
- Work in a site that has been approved to provide BCSP screening
- Has JETS certification (in Flexible Sigmoidoscopy and/or either provisional or full Colonoscopy). If you trained overseas or before the JETS programme you will need to demonstrate your competence by keeping record of your performance data and demonstrating your KPI’s.
Application process
The screening centre director or programme manager must complete a ‘New Screener Request Form - Colonoscopist’ to request the additional screening endoscopist. The form should be downloaded from the download centre of the BCSA website. The form then needs to be sent to your regional QA advisor before being sent to phe.national-bowelhub@nhs.net.
Once approved, an account will be created for the candidate to apply on the BCSA website. This will be carried out by the BCSA administrator in the JAG office and an automated email from saas@jagserver.co.uk will be sent to the candidate confirming the application arrangements. No paper applications will be accepted.
Submitting an application for the accreditation process is part of the on-going quality assurance of the BCSA and the data from applications and assessments may be used for evaluation and audit purposes.
Once the BCSA administrator has confirmed the candidate meets all the assessment criteria they will be sent a list of available dates for assessment.
Eligibility criteria for colonoscopy assessment
Once a person is approved as a candidate they must meet the following criteria to be eligible for a colonoscopy assessment.
- Applications must have a minimum lifetime experience of 1000 examinations.
- A minimum of 150 examinations is required in the 12 months prior to the submission of an application, although a proportion of these examinations are expected to be undertaken by specialist registrars (SpRs) or others under the supervision of the candidate, or in private practice.
- Candidates should have a documented unadjusted completion rate on an intention-to-treat basis of 90% or greater over the preceding year. This may include patients with bowel resection; however, patients with incomplete examinations owing to, for example, obstructing lesions or faecal obstruction will count as failures.
- Candidates should also have polyp detection rates of 20% or more, and meet the current criteria with respect to sedation. Evidence will be required of the complication rate of this series, including vasovagal attacks, bleeding problems, unplanned admissions and the use of reversal agents. The audit should be verified and signed off by the Endoscopy Unit Sister or Manager and by a consultant colleague/clinical director/medical director. Both should have been invited to inspect the raw data.
- All candidates must have a named BCSA mentor who is a current BCSA screener and has attended either the BCSA mentor/DOPyS training day, or a TCT course along with an in house mentorship training day.
- Candidates must submit four completed DOPyS forms. A BCSA mentor or local BCSA assessor may complete the DOPyS by observing four polypectomies. These do not have to be video recorded. All four must be snare polypectomies; at least one >10mm and at least one using EMR technique. All 4 DOPyS forms must be scoring as ‘competent for independent practice’ overall.
Please note that candidates who do not complete their application within 12 months of commencing the process will be required to start the application process from the beginning.