£3.5m skincare boost

A £3.5 MILLION funding package to slash waiting times for skincare services in Scotland was announced today.

Lothian has one of the longest waiting times for dermatology in the country, with some patients waiting more than a year to see a consultant, the Evening News can reveal.

Dermatology - treatment for a variety of a variety of skin diseases including acne, psoriasis and eczema - has traditionally suffered some of the longest outpatient waiting times in Scotland. Some Lothians dermatology consultants have waiting lists of 56 weeks.

The Scottish Executive today pledged to overhaul the way dermatology patients are dealt with in a project headed by consultant dermatologist Dr Colin Morton.

The project, entitled the Scottish Innovation and Redesign Collaborative for Dermatology, will work with the Scottish Council for Dermatology and the Skincare Campaign Scotland. It will focus on providing additional services if required and making better use of health staff in both hospitals and general practice.

The roles of nurses could be expanded and GPs with a special interest in dermatology could be developed through the project, as well as new appointment systems and telemedicine links with specialist departments.

Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm said today: "To build a modern dermatology service, we need to start afresh.

"That means fresh and imaginative thinking and throwing out preconceptions and historic demarcation lines which serve no-one, least of all patients.

"It means meeting patients on their own terms, inviting their families and communities to speak up and, critically, sharing control with them to help in the redesign work.

"It means making team-working among professionals a reality by examining how each member of the team can make the best contribution and best use of their skills and training.

"We have already shown in the development of one-stop clinics and other developments that we can save patients unnecessary travelling, time off work and other bureaucratic hold-ups so that the service actually serves them.

"There is no place in a modern NHS for systems which merely serve outdated custom and wasteful practice and don’t serve patients."

In the last year, there were around 290,000 out-patient attendances at dermatology clinics with waiting times ranging from four to 65 weeks across Scotland.

One of the reasons waiting times are so high is down to the growing number of skin cancer cases in Scotland, which are often referred to dermatologists.

Other services which have long waiting lists, including plastic surgery, orthopaedics, neurology and ear, nose and throat are set to benefit from similar projects in an attempt to cut waiting times.

The projects aim to ensure all health boards meet the 26 weeks maximum waiting time guarantee for out-patients when it comes into force in 2005.

Lothians Nationalist MSP Fiona Hyslop said: "I welcome any increase in funding for dermatology. With the growing incidence of skin cancer rates it is essential and I’m very keen that Lothian Health can adopt some of the cutting-edge practices and creative ways of cutting consultant waiting times.

"We need an all-Scotland approach. Lothian is lagging behind - it has some very good, enthusiastic dermatologists and we really need to tackle this issue because of the growing incidence of skin cancer."

Conservative health spokesman David Davidson said: "One of the major problems we have got is that there is a shortage of dermatologists. If we don’t have the consultants, then we can’t train the next generation of them.

"I don’t think 3.5m is enough - I can’t see what it is that they hope to achieve by that. We need to train more and we need to ensure that every health board has its full complement of consultants."