A TINY pill no bigger than a jelly bean is to be used in a North-East hospital to take colour images inside the body.

The pill, which contains a miniature camera, instantly transmits images on to a computer screen.

Patients are wired up via electrodes to a walkman-like box that collects pictures of their intestines for up to eight hours after the pill is swallowed.

The procedure is so advanced patients do not have to stay in hospital, and can even eat and drink while it is going on.

South Tyneside General Hospital, in South Shields, is the first hospital to use a tester pill from the start of May.

It will be helpful in diagnosing Crohn's disease, extremely painful inflammation of the small bowel that can lead to diarrhoea, weight loss and fever.

It also prevents some patients needing a painful endoscopy.

Simon Panter, a consultant gastroenterologist at South Tyneside, said: "We are really looking forward to starting to use the capsules.

"It will give us a whole new view of the small bowel and help us look at things such as bleeding, cancer and detect causes of anaemia.

"What's even better, is that it is totally painless, disposable and biodegradable, and literally disappears after 24 hours.

"We will not be using it on everyone who comes through the door, but on people with whom we have failed to pinpoint bleeding or sources of pain.

The camera works by taking two images every second.

After eight hours, the average time for monitoring, it will have collected about 50,000 crystal clear images.

At roughly eight metres long but coiled up in a small area in the intestines, most of the small bowel has always been out of bounds for doctors.

Currently, they can only get cameras to where it starts and finishes, but now, thanks to this tiny capsule, they will be given a clear, colour look at the entire length of the tubing.

The new technology costs £30,000 for the basic equipment kit and more for each camera pill, but doctors at South Tyneside say it will be worth the investment.

The pill's American manufacturer said the only side effect was the pill getting stuck, but added that, so far, this had happened in less than one per cent of patients.