New endoscopy unit opens in Portsmouth

A brand-new state of the art Elective Endoscopy Centre at Portsmouth’s Queen Alexandra Hospital officially welcomed its first patient earlier this week.

The Endoscopy Team at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust (PHU) provides a wide range of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures to more than 15,000 patients a year. Work on the centre, located on the ground floor of Lancaster House, started in 2024 and was supported using £13m in national funding.

The new Elective Endoscopy Centre includes its own waiting area/reception, procedure rooms, recovery area for post-procedure, and decontamination space for cleaning equipment, as well as staff areas.

Due to growing demand for day-patient procedures, the new centre will help ensure patients are able to be seen and know any appropriate next steps in their planned care quicker. The current endoscopy department on D-level at QA Hospital will remain opens for inpatient and more complex procedures, while the new centre will help the team expand its offer for day cases with the aim of improving wait times and experience for patients.

Fergus Thursby-Pelham, Consultant Gastroenterologist and Clinical Lead for Endoscopy who has worked at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust for more than 12 years, said, “This new centre will provide our team with much needed extra capacity, as well as the opportunity to work more efficiently for our patients. The whole endoscopy team here at Portsmouth are so special and I would like to thank all of them for helping us get to where we are.”

Aside from offering a more modern environment for our patients, the Elective Endoscopy Centre also has dedicated training space. This will provide our staff and trainees from across the department with the opportunity to develop and improve their skills.

Lisa Childs, Senior Sister in Endoscopy, said, “We have been working hard as a team to make sure we were ready for the opening of the Elective Endoscopy Centre and are proud of these new facilities. Our patients are at the heart of everything we do and this new centre will do a long way towards improving their experience, and that of our team.”

An endoscopy is a test to look inside a patient’s body, where a long, thin tube is inserted through a natural opening in the body such as their mouth. A small camera is on the end of the tube and allows the clinical team to look for signs of disease and help identify issues earlier.

Lee McPhail, Chief Delivery Officer, at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, said, “We know how important early diagnosis is for conditions such as cancer, which this procedure helps to detect and are delighted that this new facility is open to help our teams see and treat more patients sooner. I’d like to thank everyone who has been involved in this project to make it a reality.”