Review for 10.1186/s12876-021-01917-z (2021)

Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Restarting Elective Endoscopy Safely Amidst an Evolving Pandemic and
the Impact of Patient Perception
Version: 
0 
Date: 
30 Apr 2021
Reviewer's report:
This study provides practical advice to endoscopy services in implementing
recommendations from national professional bodies. Although descriptive, single
centre, and small numbers, it provides some real-world insights that will be
beneficial to other services.
The authors describe a pragmatic tier system to manage scheduled endoscopies,
but the actual implementation differed from this. 
What happened to patients who were not contactable by telephone? Were they
booked anyway, were they discharged, were they contacted by letter, email etc?
Although the Tier system recommends that Tiers 3 and 4 are booked after 4
weeks or after 3 months respectively the great majority of both tiers were booked
within 4 weeks - please comment.
The authors conclude "successful resumption" of services. How is this defined?:
Was this complete booking of all scheduled endoscopies?
What was the longest delay beyond originally scheduled interval?
Were there any clinical consequences of delays due to Covid e.g delayed cancer
diagnosis, progression of dysplasia, interim variceal bleeds
I note that references were accessed in May or June 2020. This is a rapidly
evolving field and an up to date literature review would be helpful for the
discussion. Other relevant studies in the international literature include:
Bhandari P, Subramaniam S, Bourke MJ, et al. Recovery of endoscopy services
in the era of COVID-19: recommendations from an international Delphi
consensus. Gut 2020;69:1915-1924.
Hayee B, group Sp, East J, et al. Multicentre prospective study of COVID-19
transmission following outpatient GI endoscopy in the UK. Gut 2020.
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Is the study design appropriate to answer the research question (including the use
of appropriate controls), and are the conclusions supported by the evidence
presented?
Yes
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
Yes
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Yes
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from apparent manipulation?
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