The Northern Care Alliance launches an AI-driven post-referral service for suspected skin cancer in Stockport, Bury and Salford.
The Northern Care Alliance (NCA) follows Manchester Foundation Trust (MFT) and Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care (TGICFT) within the Greater Manchester area as they begin their partnership with Skin Analytics.
The NCA Dermatology Centre is one of the largest of its kind in Europe, serving a population of more than 1 million patients. The NCA have been experiencing an extreme rise in demand for dermatology services leading to an increase in wait times for many patients. Referral numbers for urgent suspected skin cancer (USSC) reached 19,000 in one year, yet just 7% of these were later confirmed as skin cancer. This means scarce dermatology resources were being used to see patients who had benign skin lesions, rather than those who were higher priority.
The AI-driven post referral service for suspected skin cancer has been launched in Stockport, Bury and Salford, where it will be trialled by the team.
How does it work?
After a patient who is worried about a mole or skin lesion has been referred on the USSC pathway, the patient will be invited to an imaging clinic at one of the clinic locations detailed above. At the clinic, the patient’s medical and lesion history is confirmed and their suspicious mole or skin lesion is captured using validated hardware.
These images are then uploaded to the Skin Analytics platform where DERM – the only UKCA Class IIa AI as a Medical Device for dermatology – will assess and classify in seconds.
DERM is trained to classify 11 different lesion types including the most common malignant, pre-malignant, and benign skin lesions.
This allows NHS organisations, like the Northern Care Alliance, to discharge patients with benign lesions earlier in the pathway and prioritise patients that need to be seen by a dermatologist.
Skin Analytics’ partnerships with MFT and TGICFT have been a real catalyst for a broader Greater Manchester partnership and creating a standardised approach across the region. It’s fantastic to be working with the NCA to support their long-term ambitions to ‘reduce variation of treatment, improve cancer outcomes, maintain quality of life by improving patient experience, and reduce inequalities.’
Tom Glover, Improvement Lead at the NCA commented, ‘I’m really proud to be part of the team leading the way with the use of regulated AI as a medical device for dermatology in the North West. I am eager to see the impact this will have on reducing patient waiting times and freeing up dermatology capacity. The rise in suspect skin cancer referrals is a significant pressure and introducing Skin Analytics today is one of many initiatives to begin to tackle this.’
Greater Manchester ICB and Cancer Alliance are leading the way with defining a consistent approach across the system with regards to skin cancer pathways. The Trust teams have been able to collaborate and share learnings as part of this wider initiative, and Skin Analytics look forward to continuing their close partnership with the Trust and ICB teams in the future.
Watch this space!