Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS) for Flexible Sigmoidoscopy screening: monitoring patient reported experience of the NHS Bowel Scope Screening Programme for surveillance and quality improvement

Since March 2013, the Health Behaviour Research Centre has been monitoring patient reported outcomes (PROMS).  We started with six Bowel Scope Screening (BSS) pilot centres and are now monitoring experiences in over 40 centres using questionnaires adapted from the nurse-led demonstration site at St Mark's. PROMS Monitoring has involved giving patients i) a questionnaire in the waiting room (WRQ) to evaluate the invitation materials used in the screening programme (this was completed in the six pilot centres), ii) a questionnaire on discharge to complete the day after their test (Post-amQ) to provide rapid patient feedback on the service, and iii) a follow-up questionnaire 3 months after the screening appointment (3mQ) to provide data on longer-term outcomes. The data generated by this study will be used to identify areas for improvement within the bowel scope screening programme, to provide centre-specific feedback, and to verify UK flexi-sig trial findings. The trial is currently on-going.

This project is funded by the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme for the period 2013-2017.

Principal investigator: Dr Christian von Wagner

Contact: Hanna Skrobanski (h.skrobanski.12[at]ucl.ac.uk)