Mo1120 Suicidal Ideation and Attempts in Cancer Survivors: Community Health Survey 2008

Abstract

Background: Meeting the demand for services and training appropriate numbers of qualified staff are key challenges for health care systems. Population growth and demographic changes as well as changes in clinical practice can increase the demand for services. However, predicting the growth of demand is difficult and open to many uncertainties. In order to define the growth of demand a state-wide survey was undertaken in the public sector in Queensland regarding the volume of endoscopic services provided and changes in waiting lists. Methods: All state-owned Queensland Health facilities providing endoscopic services were asked to participate. Thus in total 27 sites across all geographic regions of Queensland were asked to provide data on the endoscopic activity and the waiting lists at the end of the financial years 2009/2010 and 2010/11. Cumulated numbers for the various types of procedures were calculated. The change of demand was calculated based upon the change of activity adjusted for the changes in patients on waiting lists for specific procedures. Results: In total 46,119 endoscopic procedures were performed in the public sector in 2009/ 2010 as compared to 52,299 in 2010/11 (+13.4%). At the same time the medical workforce grew by 8.1% as compared to 25.2% of the nursing workforce involved in the provision of endoscopic services. Combining changes in endoscopic activity plus the increase in waiting lists for endoscopic procedures, there was a 25.4% increase of demand. Interestingly, there is considerable variability with regard to the increase of procedures (Table 1). Conclusions: From 2009/2010 to 2010/2011 the demand for endoscopic services grew by 25.4%. This growth is mainly driven by demand for colonoscopies and EUS. While growth of the population (approx. 1%/year) partly increases the demand other factors also need to be considered. The substantial increase of demand for colonoscopies can be at least partially explained by the colon cancer screening activities which potentially have considerable spin off effects. Interestingly, the demand for ERCP grew by 12%. Since the population of Queensland is ageing similar to the populations in most Western countries, this demographic change with a substantial increase of the population aged 55 or more, may cause considerable increase in future demand for services in the field of Gastroenterology. Table 1: Growth of endoscopic procedures in 2009/10 vs 2010/11