West Coast waiting lists slashed

Scrapping unnecessary specialist consultations is slashing waiting times for urgent colonoscopies and cataract surgery on the West Coast.

A new West Coast District Health Board patient referral system called Alternative Pathways is eliminating the need for some specialist examinations.

This has cut waiting times for urgent colonoscopies from more than 100 days to an average of 19.

The West Coast has the highest incidence of colorectal cancer in New Zealand.

Cataract surgery patients have had their waiting times reduced from an average of 400 days to 118.

The board's patient journey improvement co-ordinator, Alison McDougall, said certain patients, especially those whose condition was obvious or who had a family history of disease, no longer needed a specialist assessment.

"Surgeons have been saying for some time often they received referral letters from GPs that a person absolutely needed a scope. They were saying we don't need to see them in clinic, but we have to see them to satisfy guidelines," she said.

The West Coast board has named Alternative Pathways the supreme winner in its first community health awards.

Funding for the programme, which has been run as a pilot, came from the Health Ministry in response to complaints from boards that ministry guidelines were creating barriers to efficiency.

McDougall said the next step would be to extend the programme to gastroscopy, which examines the stomach rather than the large intestine.