| Although “cosmetic” surgery is no longer available, more and more women being treated for breast cancer are opting to have reconstruction surgery following breast removal.
But reconstruction takes an entire day in the operating theatre and preparatory and follow-up appointments in clinics are longer than appointments for less complex treatment, which all helps to lengthen waiting lists and waiting times for treatment generally.
Health bosses have been keeping a close eye on waiting times for all types of treatment as a new maximum waiting time for treatment of six months comes in to force at the end of next month.
At their most recent meeting members of NHS Tayside’s acute services division, responsible for Ninewells, highlighted areas where waiting lists were giving cause for concern, including plastic surgery. They were told that at the end of September 51 people had waited more than 26 weeks for plastic surgery.
Medical director designate Professor Stewart Forsyth said treatment in the private sector was an option to reduce waiting times in plastic surgery.
In recent times NHS Tayside has paid for NHS patients to be treated at private hospitals to reduce waiting times, but the health authority has also taken steps to ensure people who ask for treatment, purely for cosmetic reasons, are not funded by the NHS.
Ninewells-based plastic surgeon Mr Howard Stevenson said that though his department was treating far fewer of the “cosmetic” type patients than in the past, the patients they were now treating involved “much more complex reconstruction procedures”.
“We are doing a lot of skin cancer work and a lot of breast cancer reconstruction work, which is increasing all the time,” said Mr Stevenson.
“The waiting time problem we have is largely due to complex things, particularly breast reconstruction, and that cannot be done in the private sector (locally). One case can take a whole day.”
He said national guidelines for the treatment of breast cancer introduced in the last three or four years state that women who have a mastectomy should be offered breast reconstruction.
“They don’t all take it up, but quite a lot do. Some we do at the same time as the mastectomy and others we do after radiotherapy and other treatment.”
He said while patients had been referred to private hospitals in Scotland to bring down waiting times for plastic surgery locally, that had not been necessary so far this year.
“We are all working very hard to treat as many patients as we can in house before the six-month guarantee comes in to force.” |
