Defense · Report Line
A man successfully operated on for skin cancer just four weeks after he went to the GP to have a mole checked. 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. This pathway was developed by lead cancer nurse Lucy Smith to ensure patients with suspected cancer could be assessed, biopsied, and treated sooner. All patients went through the trust's well-established teledermatology triage system, with consultant dermatologists assessing images online.
"We can then streamline patients into the best pathway for them," she said, emphasizing patient choice was "paramount." She noted that while complex patients needed a consultant, simpler cases could be managed through a nurse-led route, where time was critical. A four-month pilot from June to October last year, supervised by a plastic surgeon and dermatologist, treated 80 patients, with 70% diagnosed with skin cancer, pre-cancerous changes, or abnormal moles. The service now sees about 40 to 50 patients a month.
Jones said his initial concerns about not seeing a consultant face-to-face soon faded. "I was just informed all the way. I knew exactly what was happening," he said.
"That reassurance and speed are the two things you want when you've got cancer." After surgery under local anaesthetic, he was told the mole had been melanoma, with clear cells underneath the cancer cells. He was booked for a second operation in October to ensure no recurrence. He would recommend the nurse-led pathway to others, stating it was a quicker process and preferable to traditional consultant routes.
"You want that thing gone and you want to know they’ve done everything to prevent it returning," he said.
Source: BBC
