A man successfully operated on for skin cancer just four weeks after he went to the GP to have a mole checked says being part of a pilot to speed up treatment time was “the best thing ever”.
Richard Alun Jones from Stourbridge had recently retired from his position at Jaguar Land Rover when his partner noticed changes to a mole on his back.
He had the operation to remove it as part of a new nurse-led pathway at Dudley’s Russells Hall Hospital on his 61st birthday last August and was later told it was melanoma.
“It was the best birthday present. Just get rid of it,” he said. “Thankfully they captured it. They got it.”
The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust’s direct-to-surgery pathway aims to take patients from a telephone consultation with a nurse to surgery within the same week, removing the need for a face-to-face consultant appointment.
It was developed by lead cancer nurse Lucy Smith to ensure those with suspected cancer could be assessed, biopsied and treated sooner.
She explained all patients went through the trust’s well-established teledermatology triage system, with consultant dermatologists assessing their images online.
“We can then streamline patients into the best pathway for them,” she said, adding patient choice was “paramount”.
“There will be complex patients that need to see a consultant.
“But there are patients that can come through a nurse-led route that are simple excisions that we know need to come off and time is of the essence.”
A four-month pilot from June to October last year supervised by a plastic surgeon and dermatologist treated 80 patients, 70% of whom were found to have skin cancer, pre-cancerous changes or an abnormal mole.
The service now sees about 40 to 50 patients a month, the trust said.