An ageing population, symptom awareness campaigns, reduced thresholds for referral and the development of screening programmes are contributing to the rise of endoscopy demand, but only high quality gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures can improve patient care. The British society of gastroenterology Endoscopy Quality Improvement Programme (EQIP), which aims to raise the standards across these procedures, is the topic of the conversation between Editor-in-Chief of Frontline Gastroenterology Mark Beattie and Professor Colin Rees (Northern Institute for Cancer Research, Newcastle University, UK). Read the related paper online: https://fg.bmj.com/content/10/2/148.