Sherwood Forest Hospitals announces 1000th patient to benefit from Teledermatology skin cancer diagnosis and treatment across Newark and Kings Mill Hospitals

More than 1,000 patients with suspected skin cancer have benefited from a new service that aims to speed up diagnosis and treatment.

Teledermatology has been introduced at King’s Mill and Newark hospitals, and uses digital images to triage, diagnose, monitor or assess skin conditions without the patient being physically present.

The trust’s 1000th patient to be treated was Dale Richardson, who said: “The whole process that I have been through from referral to my appointment has been amazingly fast.

“I literally called up the clinic to be offered an appointment for the following day, no waiting around.”

Teledermatology involves a clinical photographer taking high-resolution digital photographs, which are then studied by a consultant dermatologist who can assess them remotely and decide whether a patient needs to come to hospital for further investigation and treatment, or if they can be given assurance that cancer can be ruled out more quickly.

For the patient, this eliminates the sometimes longer wait for a first face-to-face appointment with the dermatologist, and the remote triage enables dermatologists to review twice as many patients than face-to-face appointments.

Increased accuracy in diagnosing skin cancers also means there’s been a reduction in the number of non-cancerous lesions being removed unnecessarily, so fewer people need to be added to the waiting list.

Dr Ritu Singla, consultant dermatologist at Sherwood Forest Hospitals, said: “Patients are increasingly more aware of skin cancer and as a result there has been a huge rise in the number of patients waiting to be seen.

“The teledermatology service allows us to triage patients urgently referred by their GP with suspected skin cancer much quicker. It allows us to reassure patients much quicker when they do not have cancer.

“It also enables us to start treatment sooner for those patients where cancer has been diagnosed.”

One patient for whom this was the case was Fiona Hayward Lyon who had a lesion removed recently at Newark Hospital. Her appointment for photographs was arranged within three days of contacting her doctor.

She explained: “Today’s experience has been really good. I didn’t expect to be seen this quickly

“I can now move on and be a little more careful in the sun.”

Both Dale and Fiona have since been reassured that their treatment is complete and have been discharged.

Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs both the hospitals, is beginning the process of training more dermatologists to expand the service.