What is JAG?

The Joint Advisory Group on Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (JAG) accreditation scheme is a supportive process of evaluating the quality of clinical services by guiding services through a quality framework – our JAG standards. We aim to ensure the delivery of high-quality, safe, and patient-centred care in endoscopy services across the UK through the process of accreditation.

Accreditation promotes quality improvement through highlighting areas of best practice and areas for change, encouraging the continued development of the clinical service. Accreditation is a voluntary process and accredited services submit evidence annually to demonstrate that they are continuing to meet the standards and have a 5-yearly on-site assessment carried out by our experienced assessment team.

We developed our standards with a multi-professional group of clinicians, managers and patients.

Endoscopy service accreditation

The JAG programme assesses endoscopy services that are registered with JAG in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The process of accreditation ensures high quality care is provided to endoscopy patients. The Global Rating Scale, a QI tool for endoscopy services, was launched in 2005 for services to self-assess against, alongside a set of standards. This was rolled out nationally in 2005, when it became compulsory for services who wanted to participate in bowel cancer screening in England.

Over 50% of services in the UK are currently JAG accredited, with a total of 562 services registered with JAG in the UK and Ireland.

JAG training

The JAG initially focused on standardising endoscopy training and a review of colonoscopy practice found that training in colonoscopy was often inadequate and improved practice should result from better training. In 2009, the JAG endoscopy training system (JETS) programme created a colonoscopy training pathway to help improve the practice, and now hosts a number of certification pathways across multiple modalities. 

The Bowel Cancer Screener Accreditation (BCSA) programme in England, and Bowel Screening Wales, were introduced to reduce the number of bowel cancer associated deaths, through early detection of the disease. A colonoscopy is required for screening. To ensure patients receive a consistently high-quality endoscopic procedure, the clinicians carrying out the test must be accredited.

The JETS Workforce is a training programme that provides the endoscopy workforce with a structured approach to training, assessments, and appraisals. It aims to update the workforce on service developments in endoscopy. 

The JETS Administration and Clerical programme is a competency framework to ensure that the administrative workforce is equipped with the skills and knowledge to support their roles in endoscopy booking and scheduling.

The National Endoscopy Database (NED) aim is to support and enable improved quality assurance in endoscopy, to enhance JETS and to offer potential for research by providing a central store of key endoscopy data.

International

In collaboration with national leads, JAG provide the Global Rating Scale (GRS) quality improvement tool and offer quality assurance (accreditation) for Irish endoscopy services. The National Endoscopy Quality Improvement Programme in New Zealand use the Global Rating Scale (GRS) to measure endoscopy services’ performance and to drive quality improvement. JAG has shared learning with countries across the world including Australia, Iraq and South Africa, and has supported training courses in Malawi. JAG’s curriculum has also helped train nurse endoscopist bowel cancer screeners in Hong Kong.