Colonoscopy wait times stretched
04 Aug 2025
People are at risk of cancer ‘they could have otherwise survived’ with recommended wait times blowing out, warns one RACGP expert.
A loss of lives and trust in screening programs are the risks of overly long wait times for colonoscopies, says the chair of RACGP Victoria.
Currently, not one Australian state or territory is meeting the recommended 30-day timeframe between a positive bowel cancer screening and a diagnostic assessment, usually a colonoscopy.
‘I’m concerned that we just don’t have enough services to meet the demand,’ RACGP Victoria Chair Dr Anita Muñoz told newsGP.
‘It would be a tragedy for any Australian to die of a cancer they could have otherwise survived because we’re not meeting the demand for colonoscopy.’
The call for increased services comes after a Victorian patient reported waiting nine months to receive a colonoscopy, leaving her with ‘extreme anxiety’.
But other areas are also being severely impacted – the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program monitoring report 2025 shows the median time between a positive screen and diagnostic assessment is highest for people living in the Northern Territory, at 78 days, and lowest for Victorians, at 54 days.
Nationally, the median wait time is 62 days – twice that recommended by the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program and Bowel Cancer Australia.
Only 13.9% of participants received a colonoscopy within the recommended 30-day timeframe.
And at the 90% percentile of waiting times, people wait between 129 days and 179 days, depending on where they live, according to Bowel Cancer Australia.
In response, Bowel Cancer Australia CEO Julien Wiggins said GPs are ‘the gatekeepers of our healthcare system’.
‘While a positive screening test or red flag signs and symptoms of bowel cancer require further investigation, without prompt access to colonoscopy following a referral, the opportunity for early detection or intervention can be lost,’ he told newsGP.
The wait times for colonoscopies not only threaten to create a ‘loss of trust’ in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program but also hamper healthcare providers’ efforts to encourage uptake in a program that is already undersubscribed, Dr Muñoz says.
Just 41.7% of eligible participants undertook screening in 2022–23. Almost 6% of those returned a positive result needing further assessment.
These figures from 2023 are for people aged 50 to 74, and do not take into account the program’s expansion in July 2024 to people aged 45–49 years.
Dr Muñoz says a ‘social contract’ exists between public health providers, government and patients, by inviting people to take part in screening programs.
‘They do so, believing that will open up access to treatment and potentially save lives,’ she said.
‘If we’re asking people to participate and then we’re not giving them the treatment and the follow-up they reasonably expect, then that means there’s going to be a loss of trust in our screening programs and a loss of trust in our health system.’
Dr Muñoz said GPs and general practice staff ‘have a long history of bearing the brunt of people’s frustrations when the health system lets them down’.
‘Having said that, we would not change our approach to recommending bowel cancer screening, but we do have to tolerate the frustration alongside our patients,’ she said.
‘If people have diagnoses made where an opportunity for intervention much earlier could have changed the trajectory of their disease, they know that window has been lost and they end up with more severe disease, or life-ending disease. That’s really problematic.’
A spokesperson for the Victorian Government told newsGP it is working closely with the Federal Government to ‘improve access to timely colonoscopies and raise awareness about the importance of attending appointments promptly’.
