ONE-stop appointments for diagnostic tests, a tele-dermatology service, and recruitment into new specialist x-ray and scanning roles are among the initiatives being pursued by Gwent health bosses to improve cancer waiting times.

It was announced last week that all health boards in Wales have produced 100-day plans for providing better cancer services, amid concerns that waiting times for beginning treatments are in need of improvement.

A key focus of those improvements is first outpatient appointments, and an aim of providing these within 10 working days.

This is a priority for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, which is seeking to provide wherever possible, one-stop appointments where blood and other relevant tests can be done, to minimise the need for patients to keep going back to hospital for more tests.

This in turn is geared toward ensuring earlier diagnosis and referral to specialist treatment centres.

Gwent's health board is also using its recently developed tele-dermatology service, which provides, through computer links with patients, a virtual and visual consultation, and more than 2,200 patients have so far been seen this way.

The Argus highlighted earlier this month that difficulties in recruiting, allied to worries about workloads for existing staff, have resulted in ultrasound scanning backlogs.

The health board is now seeking to recruit into new roles such as specialist radiographer and consultants with interests in ultrasound to help fill hard-to-recruit posts.

For the July-September period this year, all but nine of 519 patients (98.3 per cent) in Gwent whose cancer was not discovered through the urgent suspected cancer pathway began treatment within the target 31 days. The target is a minimum 98 per cent.

And of the 311 patients whose cancer was discovered through the urgent suspected cancer pathway, 279 began treatment within the target 62 days (89.7 per cent). The target here is a minimum 95 per cent and it is this measure that is causing the most concern.

Gwent's health board, despite being the second best performer of seven in Wales on the 62-day target, still falls short, and Wales-wide during that quarter just 85.6 per cent of patients on that pathway began their treatment inside the target time.

"We are already well on the way to delivering our 100-day plan, and ensuring that patients receive timely, high quality care and the best possible outcome," said a Gwent health board spokesman.