573 Improving Access to Surgical Services for Skin Cancer in Buckinghamshire NHS Trust

Aim Skin cancer is an increasingly prevalent condition that requires early diagnosis and prompt surgical management. Our quality improvement project (QIP) aimed to characterise the scale of skin cancer referrals and operating capacity, streamline our referral triage process, and to develop new patient pathways to improve speed of access to surgical services. Method The number of new skin cancer referrals was prospectively collected over the course of October 2023. These were analysed to investigate referral quality, extracting data on necessary clinical information for triage. New surgical streams were designed to accommodate additional cases, including a see-and-treat service and an additional junior-led operating list. Skin cancer procedures over April 2023 were retrospectively analysed to assess their suitability for these new patient pathways. Results There were 65 new skin cancer referrals in October 2023. Only 1 referral (1.5%) included key information on anticoagulation status, mobility, and mental capacity. From 110 skin cancer procedures in April 2023, 88 (80%) are suitable for management within the new treatment streams. Conclusions Our QIP has identified a significant number of new skin cancer referrals per month, often with inadequate clinical information. The development of new surgical pathways has increased operating capacity and is fit for the purpose of managing our current skin cancer surgical outpatients. Future aims will be to improve the quality of incoming referrals, streamlining the patient pathway, and to evaluate the impact of our new surgical streams on the skin cancer waiting list.