WAITING times for a common hospital procedure could plummet around the world thanks to pioneering research carried out in East Lancashire.

A study involving more than 600 patients has shown that nurses can perform an important examination of the bowel and stomach for cancer just as well as doctors.

If taken up by hospitals, the change of duties could take the load off over-stretched doctors and slash waiting times, health bosses at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust said.

The study looked at gastrointestinal endoscopy, where a camera is passed down a person's throat to study the bowel and stomach.

The findings of the study - for which 641 patients took part - have been published in Endoscopy, the journal of the European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.

Two nurse endoscopists and five doctors were filmed carrying out the procedure, which about 350 people undergo every month in East Lancashire.

The footage was then given to a doctor at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary who was not told whether the person carrying out the procedure was a doctor or a nurse.

The study concluded: "Nurses can provide an accurate general diagnostic upper gastrointestinal endoscopy service as competently as doctors".

Damien Lynch, a consultant physician at the Trust, which runs Royal Blackburn Hospital and Burnley General Hospital, said: "The numbers of nurse endoscopists employed to do a job previously only undertaken by doctors has steadily grown in recent years.

"However, until now, there has been no evidence to show that their work is of as high a standard.

"This study is one of the first, and largest, worldwide. It is reassuring for patients and has important implications for the future development of the service.

"It also highlights East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust as an institution committed to high quality research and innovation."

A Trust spokeswoman said: "Rising demand for general diagnostic upper gastrointestinal endoscopy in the UK has outgrown the capacity of doctors to provide this service within a reasonable time.

"One solution is to train nurses to carry out the procedure, but previously it had not been known whether nurses can perform the test as competently as doctors."

According to latest figures, for June, 31 out of 345 people in East Lancashire had to wait more than 13 weeks to be seen for the procedure, which can detect the early sign of some cancers.

One of the nurses who took part in the study became one of the UK's first nurse endoscopists in 1998.

She said: "One of the driving forces behind the development of the role of nurses to enable them to carry out endoscopies was the increasing demand on the service.

"We were able to help bring down waiting times and free up the time of the medical staff to enable them to carry out more complex, therapeutic procedures."