To comply with the governing body (United Kingdom Central Council), nurses in clinical practice are professionally responsible for setting and monitoring standards of practice in relation to their patient group. Representing nurses who work in this specialty of gastrointestinal endoscopy, the British Society of Gastroenterology Endoscopy Associates have compiled these guidelines to form the basis of safe practice from which can be agreed, owned and monitored in each unit as part of the Quality Assurance Programme.