Endoscopies were formerly carried out by doctors, but a senior staff nurse has now qualified to carry out the procedures after a year's training.

Carlyn Waters is the first nurse to be trained in the county to use the miniature endoscope camera equipment.

About 6,500 procedures are carried out in Cornwall each year.

'Top end down'

An endoscopy uses a tiny camera to view the upper and lower digestive system. Nurses in America have been carrying out these examinations since the 1970s.

Carlyn Waters, a senior staff nurse at West Cornwall Hospital, will conduct the endoscopies at Penzance and at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Treliske.

She carried out 200 supervised endoscopies to become a nurse specialist.

She said: "My work is on the diagnostic side.

"Someone will come in with symptoms and I look in from the top end down, from the mouth.

"If I see anything that looks unusual, I'll either take a picture, a biopsy, or both. They can then be sent away and analysed.

"This will also leave consultants free to do therapeutic treatments."