Bowel Cancer Australia today released initial findings from the first national My Colonoscopy Experience questionnaire.

The questionnaire opened in September 2018 at the same time as the Colonoscopy Clinical Care Standard, created by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC).

While the Standard was a welcome first step in outlining the care people who have a colonoscopy should receive, it did not contain specific indicators to measure the patient’s experience.

“Communicating the unique patient perspective is vital for understanding how to make services better and safer for patients,” said Bowel Cancer Australia CEO Julien Wiggins.

“As more and more people share their experience, findings will help shape Bowel Cancer Australia’s initiatives and can be used more broadly as a valuable resource to inform policy, programs, and investment in colonoscopy quality and care,” Mr Wiggins said.

Of the 4.1 million people invited to participate in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program between January 2016 and December 2017, only four in every ten took up the offer according to the latest AIHW report.

The rate was the same as for the previous rolling 2-year period (2015–2016) (41%) and is now hovering at the same rate it was in 2009, before dropping to just 36.1% in 2012.

It’s Never Too Young Awareness Week (3-9 June 2019), and Bowel Cancer Australia is raising much needed awareness that you’re never too young to have bowel cancer.

A new global study of seven high-income countries has found that in the decade up to 2014, Australia’s second most deadly cancer is on the rise in people under 50.

There is no shortage of information on bowel cancer but when it comes to credible information, that’s a different case.

Although a large majority of newly diagnosed bowel cancer cases occur in people aged 50 years and over, 1 in 11 Australians diagnosed with bowel cancer are under the age of 50.