We hope you all had a break over the festive period.

We have had a busy start to the new year with an IBD focused endoscopy time with a fantastic panel, and the AI webinar an excellent summary of AI tools by Dr Beatriz Gros to support your professional development.

The first IBD360 meeting, a collaboration with the IBD clinical and research group committees in Birmingham was a huge success. A privilege to be able to support the IBD community in delivering good care by the MDT. At Endobridge we had an IBD endoscopy session in Leeds where we discussed the role of endoscopy in the diagnosis, management and cancer surveillance in IBD – we also delivered an additional webinar discussing the cancer risk tool.

All podcasts focussed on the updated guidelines are now available (read more below) - please do listen to the guideline committee explore topics in more detail and we would love to hear your feedback.

Several projects are continuing, including development of IBUS and IBD endoscopy - you can read an update below from Dr Christian Selinger.

Optimise IBD is making good progress and we are excited at working with the 14 pilot sites to help benchmark data against the IBD standards.

We are grateful to have been invited to support Dr Markus Gwiggner (Southampton) as the GI lead on the NHSE online hospital.

We also have several initiatives led by committee members to understand variation in therapy prescribing and are grateful for your support to complete all the surveys.

We are excited to announce a new collaboration with JAG, led by Dr Alexandra Kent - the BSG/JAG UK Inflammatory Bowel Disease Surveillance Survey to survey all endoscopists in IBD surveillance experience, skills and knowledge to help support recommendations in the BSG IBD Colorectal cancer surveillance guidelines . We are hugely grateful to Prof. Matt Rutter for his support in this work. Please do complete the survey here and help us understand how to develop the future workforce.  

Read on!

IUS Training in the UK – An Update 

Intestinal bowel Ultrasound (IUS) in IBD care offers many advantages to patients (non-invasive, pain-free, no preparation), the NHS (low cost, direct results allowing instant decision making, freeing up endoscopy and MRI capacity) and the environment (better carbon footprint). Currently provision of IUS in the UK is limited and patchy. The BSG has in collaboration with partner societies developed a plan to increase training capacity and help facilitate a staged nationwide role out of IUS services. Over the coming month we will reach out to clinicians already providing and/or training in IUS and launch the initiative formally with stakeholder engagement.  

1. Time to diagnosis defined as date of referral to date of first clinical diagnosis of IBD made This aligns closely with patient priorities and there is clear evidence of delayed diagnosis leading to worse patient outcomes. 

 2. Time from diagnosis to treatment defined as date of diagnosis to date of treatment This is a UK IBD standard and has been associated with much better outcomes in early treatment as shown by the PROFILE trial. 

 3. Number of steroid courses for existing patients with IBD during the last 12 months prior to clinic review Steroid excess is associated with poor care and that steroid exposure can be reduced by Quality Improvement measures.

 4. Completion of pre-biologic screening checks prior to advanced medication commencement and follow up at 3 and 12 months to assess efficacy and safety 

The BSG is now organising and funding a pilot study across the UK for 10-12 sites to test collecting audit information in relation to these KPIs and instigating improvements where required. We have recruited 14 pilot sites and hope to start data collection across the four KPIs in February 2026.

Exciting news: Green Gastroenterology Challenge 2026 launches! 

The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare (CSH), in collaboration with the British Society of Gastroenterology, is launching the Green Gastroenterology Challenge 2026, fully funded by Micro-Tech UK. 

Building on the success of the Green Surgery, Green Maternity and Green Nursing Challenges, this national programme supports gastroenterology teams to deliver practical, sustainable quality improvement with real impact on patient care and carbon. 

We’re running a webinar on Monday 9 February 2026 18:00-19:00 to introduce the Challenge and explain how gastroenterology teams can apply to take part. Whether you are new to sustainable healthcare or already leading change in your service, this event will show how sustainable practice can align with high-quality, equitable patient care.