New Zealand doctors now diagnose nearly 70,000 skin cancers each year with some patients waiting up to 12 months for treatment at a public hospital.
Surgeons at one district health board, the Canterbury DHB, have set up a one-stop shop to try to change that, calling on the expertise of local GPs to help make it happen.
It is a medical fact that too much time spent out in the sun in your youth translates to time spent on a hospital gurney having skin cancers cut out later in life.
Eva Pullan had a melanoma removed a week ago at Christchurch's see and treat clinic.
Pullan is one of around 3,000 patients who have so far benefited from the see and treat clinics at Burwood Hospital. Before, patients could wait six months to be seen by a specialist and up to another six months for treatment. Pullan has been treated in a matter of days.
The initiative is the brainchild of Christchurch's plastic surgeons such as Stuart Sinclair who were frustrated by the long patient waits.
"It always seemed to me that a whole segment of this process could be cut out if we could arrange to see and treat at least most of them at the same time, in one hit so to speak," Sinclair says.
GPs refer patients straight to the clinic which is run several times a week.
"The consultant still sees the patient but then can pass them immediately to one of four operating rooms where we have a couple of GPs and a couple of trainees," Sinclair says.
Sixty local GP's such as Doctor Rebecca Henderson have also spent time at the clinic so far, honing their surgical skills.
"We're up-skilling and learning new techniques and taking things off places we wouldn't normally do," Henderson says.
Doctor Rod Kirkwood says they can do this while watching their own patients benefit.
"Now we can say we can actually do this much sooner they're sort of grateful and relieved," says Kirkwood.
It also means some relief for the health system too as New Zealanders sun-loving lifestyles cause more cancers each day.
