You've got a three day dermatology conference in Glasgow. The world's leading experts in dermatology are attending. They offer free mole checks for the public. So what do you do?
You refuse, of course.
This was the quixotic decision made by Greater Glasgow Health Board yesterday, on the grounds that it would increase referrals to GPs and they would be unable to cope. Fair? Well, the last check that this group did was at the Chelsea Flower Show. They checked 500 people and found 17 cases of skin cancer, three of them serious. They could have probably expected a similar number in Glasgow. Now, would an extra 17 cases of skin cancer, spread across the numerous GP practices in Glasgow, caused a panic? I don't think so.
But where it might have caused a problem is the Beatson. The Beatson is the Cancer Centre for the West of Scotland. Its catchment area is 2.8 million people. It is absolutely overwhelmed just now, to the point that an extra seventeen people with skin cancer might make a difference. Greater Glasgow Health Board have really, really, really got to get to grips with this. This has been ongoing since the new building opened. It is good to have a specialist cancer centre, but if that is the way you plan cancer services, you need to make sure that you have enough capacity to cope with numbers. You cannot turn round to the world's leading dermatologists and tell them to withdraw their services because you can't cope with any possible referrals. It's bad form and if I were them, I would be taking my conference elsewhere next year. This isn't such a molehill as it appears..
