Member for Barwon Roy Butler discovered in December he had melanoma.

The shock discovery could have happened much earlier, and safer, if he had access to more convenient opportunity to get a check-up.

A doctor identified sunspots on his skin as suspicious a decade ago and advised him to get them checked, he said.

READ ALSO:

But with the nearest qualified doctor over two hours away, it was too easy for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MP put off a checkup again, and again.

He found out only a month ago.

"If a medical service was a bit more accessible..." he said.

"The first referral was to Orange. Two hours, 15 down and two hours 15 back will pretty much wipe out a day," he said.

"So I ended up getting it done in Lithgow, on my way to and from parliament."

Mr Butler represents the largest electorate in NSW, covering 44 per cent of the state, so he's familiar with the difficulty of providing healthcare across the state's outback.

He hopes an upcoming upper house inquiry into health outcomes and access to health and hospital services in rural, regional and remote NSW will lead to real change to help overcome the tyranny of distance.

"When we see the outcomes of rural health in terms of life expectancy and preventable death, obviously something is wrong. And government has known about that for some time," he said.

"Over the 20-year period, 1996-2016, whilst people in the Sydney area, their life expectancy actually went up substantially, we went backwards. And the further west you go the more life expectancy went backwards which is pretty damning."

Nearly 200 patients from across rural NSW have shared their personal stories with the Legislative Council probe so far.

A man told the parliamentary inquiry he "died twice" in Tamworth Rural Referral hospital.

National Farmers' Federation president and Liverpool Plains farmer Fiona Simson revealed her own medical horror story to the inquiry. She is caught on the wrong side of a health district border, which means ambulances never take her to her nearest appropriate hospital.

Mr Butler openly admitted he is a "bad patient" who should have got his checkup earlier - but the system encouraged his laziness.

He had the melanoma cut out on December 23 last year.