Colonoscopy considered

A study from England finds a really big difference in the apparent effectiveness of colonoscopy conducted by the NHS, and those done by "independent providers".   Which is not exactly an intuitive result - you might suspect that the NHS ones would be more conducted in more of a rush.  

I would guess the difference must really be down to the experience level of the doctors doing it.

It is consistent with something I heard on (I think) The Drum a few weeks ago - a doctor and some other health system expert saying that if they had cancer, they would choose to get treatment via the public system rather than private, based on the better outcomes found in the public system by virtue of their experience level.

Anyway, this from the study on colonoscopy and the subsequent rate of cancers:

a team of UK researchers set out to compare PCCRC rates between all providers in England to measure variation in colonoscopy quality.

Their findings are based on more than 120,000 individuals undergoing colonoscopy in England between 2005 and 2013 and subsequently diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The proportion of those diagnosed six months to three years after the colonoscopy were identified to calculate a PCCRC-3yr rate.

After taking account of potentially influential factors such as age, sex, and medical history, the PCCRC-3yr rate declined from 9.0% in 2005 to 6.5% in 2013.

However, rates for colonoscopies performed within the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (BCSP) were better (lower) at 3.6% than those performed by independent providers (9.3%) which are increasingly being used to meet the rising demand for colonoscopy.

Yay for socialised medicine, I suppose.