The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) is calling on the Government to confirm whether its new $23 million community skin cancer investment includes funding for the pathology services that are critical to confirm diagnoses and guide effective treatment. <\/p>\n
Announced on 1 August, the funding will ensure more GPs are trained in dermoscopy and skin excision, to enable general practice clinicians to check and remove suspicious spots and moles, making services more accessible and shortening appointment wait times. <\/p>\n
The RCPA welcomes the goal of diagnosing skin cancer earlier and aiming to improve patient outcomes. But this won\u2019t be achievable without additional funding for pathology services, leaving patients facing the greatest impact.<\/p>\n
With pathology services already stretched, an increase in the number of specimens provided through the new scheme will place additional demands on pathologists, who must examine every lesion before a diagnosis is confirmed and treatment can proceed.<\/p>\n
RCPA New Zealand Vice President A\/Prof Diane Kenwright said: \u201cAn investment in the earlier diagnosis of skin cancer by training GPs to check and remove suspicious spots and moles is one step forward. Without funding for pathology services that are already stretched, the significant increase to a pathologist\u2019s workload is alarming.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncreasing pressure for pathology, which faces persistent workforce shortages, will not deliver the diagnoses patients need, faster. <\/p>\n
\u201cPathology is central to disease diagnoses and treatment – including skin cancer. Proper funding of pathology is critical to retain highly qualified specialists in NZ and grow the workforce to meet increasing demands.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) is calling on the Government to confirm whether its new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-559407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}