Gastroenterology & Endoscopy
The Gastroenterology Department at NNUH provides an excellent range of services delivered by our dedicated multidisciplinary team of clinicians, nurses and administrative personnel to the population of Norfolk.
Why join us in Gastroenterology & Endoscopy?
Europe’s largest Endoscopy team
When you join our team, you’ll become part of the biggest and largest Endoscopy Unit in Europe – we are constantly innovating and thinking about future opportunities.
Home of the groundbreaking Quadram Institute
The £81million facility is on a mission to develop solutions to worldwide challenges in human health, food and disease.
Join a Centre of Excellence
NNUH is one of only 10 Regional Centres of Excellence in the UK for Endoscopy Training accredited by the Joint Advisory Group on GI Endoscopy (JAG)
Be part of a team of world-renowned experts
Our Gastroenterology department is home to a team of doctors, nurses and surgeons with global expertise in the speciality
Our Gastroenterology & Endoscopy Unit
The Gastroenterology Department at NNUH provides an excellent range of services delivered by our dedicated multidisciplinary team of clinicians, nurses and administrative personnel to the population of Norfolk. Based on its own dedicated ward within the hospital, the team work with a wide spectrum of patients including those who have complex liver issues, IBD, nutrition concerns and substance misuse.
The team also work closely with the liver transplant team for the East of England providing pre and post-transplant care for patients. As a referral centre for nutritional patients the team often deal with unusual and complex cases.
“We are delighted to receive our JAG accreditation for our new endoscopy unit and to receive such high commendations for the services we provide at the Quadram Institute.
We are proud of the new unit, which puts us at the forefront of endoscopy services and has enables patients to receive quicker access to endoscopic diagnostics for patients and rapid access for the diagnosis or exclusion of gastrointestinal cancer.”
– NNUH Consultant Gastroenterologist
Working as a Registered Nurse within our team will give you the opportunity to work with a range of supportive colleagues working with a strong team ethos and with an interesting and varied range of cases such as those mentioned above. The Gastroenterology ward is well supported by a team of specialist nurses including nutrition nurses, IBD nurses, liver nurses and substance misuse nurses. Many of these specialist nurses worked as a Registered Nurse on our Gastroenterology ward before being promoted into these posts including opportunities for secondments.
As a registered Nurse on our Gastroenterology ward you will get the opportunity to learn about a wide range of Gastro cases and learn how to manage patients with complex and difficult lifestyles
Our innovative approach is not just reserved for the patient experience either: we are constantly looking at ways to offer new and dynamic training and education opportunities to our team. We have a team of Assistant Practitioners on hand to support nursing colleagues and we are always happy to offer rotational opportunities as we consider each Nurse an individual and valued member of our team.
We are regularly audited against the Endoscopy Global Rating Scale and consistently achieve high scores for quality of care. We have also been named as one of the few National Centres of Excellence for Endoscopy Training, and offer training courses accredited by the Joint Advisory Group on GI Endoscopy (JAG), and work with the Institute of Food Research.
Our team is proud to be home to the East of England Bowel Cancer Screening Programme. We were one of the first sites in the country to introduce the new national screening programme to help detect bowel cancer at an early stage, when treatment is more likely to be effective.
Our Team
The Gastro department is home to a team of specialist doctors and nurses, as well as a number of surgeons with expertise in Gastroenterology who work within the Unit.
Unit Contact Information
Professor Alastair Watson MD, FRCP, LRSM
Service Director of Gastroenterology
Consultant Gastroenterologist
Professor of Translational Medicine
Alastair.Watson@uea.ac.uk
Our staff
Tracy McDonnell
Lead Nurse For Endoscopy Services
My job role is to be responsible for the management and delivery of high quality patient focused care and services within endoscopy in line with best practice outcomes. After a long and varied nursing career I joined the endoscopy team in 1992. After 26 years in endoscopy I still have a passion for the speciality. I have enjoyed my time and over the years have seen many changes in practice which have allowed us to carry out state-of-the-art procedures on one of the biggest and busiest endoscopy units in the country.
Alastair Watson
Consultant
I knew very little about Norwich before I applied for the post. At my first visit I was put up in a good hotel and was impressed the friendly atmosphere. The quality of life in Norwich is very high. House prices are very reasonable. One can live within walking distance of the city centre without breaking the bank. Similarly, one can live in countryside with only short commute to the hospital either by car or bike. Norwich as a city ticks a lot of boxes. It has excellent schools. Crime is low and one feels safe walking around. The historical aspects of Norwich remain very obvious with its city walls, medieval street plan and a Norman cathedral. Sport is good with a premiership football team. There is a vibrant arts scene with an annual festival and both professional and amateur theatre and music. In short, Norwich is one of Britain’s best kept secrets.
Anne Bujak
Sister
I have been working for the NHS for a long time in various roles, with a gap for bringing up my family. I worked at the old Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital in the Intensive Care Unit before moving away from Norfolk, and I was happy to have the opportunity to move back once my children had flown the nest. Endoscopy is a very interesting area to work in as it is so varied.
The Quadram Institute
The Quadram Institute is the brand new, £81million centre for food and health research which is located alongside the NNUH site in Norwich Research Park, one of Europe’s largest single-site concentrations of research in food, health and environmental sciences.
The new world-leading centre for food and health research is an exciting and revolutionary venture bringing together Quadram Institute Bioscience, the NNUH Endoscopy Centre and aspects of the University of East Anglia’s Norwich Medical School and the Faculty of Science.
NNUH now has the ability to double its capacity for bowel screening at the Centre, which has been given a more prominent focus due to population expansion and a longer life expectancy.
The Quadram Institute’s mission is to develop solutions to worldwide challenges in human health, food and disease. The concept for the institute is to enable a step-change in food and health science research, by providing new insights and being at the forefront of innovation in delivering new treatments, as well as proactive health and lifestyle interventions.
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