Patients’ lives may be at risk in some hospitals because the wait for endoscopy procedures is too long, the Healthcare Commission says.

More than a million patients in England have an endoscopy each year to detect conditions such as bowel cancer. But waiting times for the procedure vary across the country, says a report by the commission.

The report raises the fear that tests are not always being carried out correctly. Forty-five per cent of trusts did not monitor whether endoscopists examined the correct areas of the bowel during examinations, meaning potential cases of cancer might be missed.

Waiting times were particularly bad in the South East, where half of patients had been waiting for more than 26 weeks for a colonoscopy. The Government’s target is 13 weeks.

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