Teledermatology

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust are working with Vita Health Group to pilot a skin cancer community assessment service initially across Southport and Formby.

Teledermatology involves a qualified professional taking a series of digital photographs of a patient’s skin lesion. The photographs are then sent to a consultant dermatologist for remote assessment to determine if the patient needs to come into hospital for further review or treatment.

The clinic is run in partnership with Cinapsis, an external clinical system supplier. Dermoscopic images are images taken with a dermatoscope, which magnifies the skin lesion and allows its inspection without skin surface light reflections. Cinapsis has been developed to enable the secure sending of confidential photographic images to our consultant dermatologists.

Patients may have their photographs taken at their GP surgery by their Primary Care Team, or their GP may refer them for an appointment with Vita at the Ainsdale Community Diagnostic Centre. Only lesion(s) that have been specified by a GP in the referral will be photographed during an appointment.

Patients will be contacted after their appointment within a maximum of ten working days to advise if they need to come into hospital for further treatment. Please note the team will triage as soon as possible so you may hear from them sooner and this should not be a cause for concern.

If you are concerned about any lesions or skin problems, please seek advice from your GP in the first instance.

Useful Links

British Association of Dermatology - https://www.bad.org.uk/

MWL Teledermatology Patient Information Leaflets

• These will be published here as soon as they are available