Endoscope cleaning: one sink or two?

Endoscopy services across the NHS are experiencing sustained and growing demand. Rising referral volumes, screening programmes and an ageing population have placed increasing pressure on endoscopy units to deliver high-quality, timely services while operating within constrained resources.^1,2 Recent national reports have highlighted that endoscopy activity continues to rise year on year, with many services working at or near capacity despite service improvement initiatives.^1-3

Alongside these clinical demands, NHS organisations are also expected to demonstrate progress against ambitious sustainability targets, particularly around water usage, carbon reduction and workforce efficiency.⁴ The NHS Net Zero Building Standard and the Greener NHS programme now explicitly reference water conservation, resource efficiency and building performance as core components of the net‑zero roadmap, creating an increasing expectation that clinical services demonstrate measurable environmental improvements.⁵

Decontamination units sit at the centre of this challenge. The reprocessing of flexible endoscopes is an essential, safety-critical activity that must be performed to exacting standards. However, it is also a resource-intensive process, requiring staff time, water consumption, energy use and consumables. As throughput increases, so too does the operational and environmental burden associated with endoscope reprocessing.^6-8