A local gastroenterologist is looking back on his time as the chair of the national body that oversees the quality of endoscopy.
Professor Matt Rutter is now months away from ending his three-year term chair of the Joint Advisory Group (JAG) for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.
JAG oversees training for endoscopy in the UK, and carries out accreditation visits of endoscopy centres, averaging more than 500 assessments every year.
Honour
Matt said: “Being JAG chair has been an honour. JAG makes sure that endoscopy standards are maintained and that quality is improved across the country.
“Before I took on the role, I was keen to find out more about how JAG was organised so that I could make sure it was fit for purpose.
“On commencing the post, I worked with the JAG team to create a three-year development plan, reviewing all our activities and looking for ways to make processes leaner and quicker, hence more effective for the UK endoscopy community and the population we serve.
“One thing we did was to utilise the wealth of information captured though our National Endoscopy Database which I set up more than ten years ago.
“Using this data has helped us refine best-practice which we constantly feedback to clinicians around the UK.
“We’ve also worked very hard to improve endoscopy training, learning from the best to make sure every patient has a safe and effective procedure.”
Matt has also written JAG’s very first annual report. Matt commented: “JAG has existed for 30 years and had never produced an annual report. I thought that as the body which overseas quality, we should hold ourselves accountable to the community of professionals we serve.
“It’s a high-level overview of our year but one I hope provides value to practitioners and stakeholders.”
Proud
Matt is also particularly proud of the endoscopy services at the University Hospital North Tees and the University Hospital of Hartlepool. He said: “Endoscopy is a real strength for North Tees and Hartlepool – we are a centre of excellence in every sense, running a high-quality, patient-centred service.
“We host Teesside’s Bowel Cancer Screening service, co-host the region’s training academy and are one of the UK’s leading centres for endoscopy research.”
Matt, who lives in Darlington with his wife, first qualified as a consultant in 2003.
Outside of work he enjoys spending time with his grown-up children and is planning to use his new-found free time indulging in his passion for the outdoors.