In 2023, Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) implemented DERM to improve early skin cancer detection and increase the proportion of cancers diagnosed at stage one or two.
The team reached out to the PCN networks and individual practices, onboarding 48 of them into the service, serving approximately 500,000 patients in total.
Primary care across Lancashire & South Cumbria had been under strain. Previously, with no community skin service, patients with suspicious skin lesions had to wait to see a GP before being referred to overwhelmed secondary care dermatology services at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Trust (LTHT).
At LTHT, the Urgent Suspected Skin Cancer (USSC) pathway received a high volume of referrals with a very low conversion rate. In June 2023, only 1.83% of USSC referrals ended up with a skin cancer diagnosis at LTHT.
Using Skin Analytics’ AI as a medical device, DERM, a pre-referral community service for skin cancer was implemented, focusing on accessibility and a streamlined patient journey.
When a patient who is worried about a mole or skin lesion contacts their GP practice, they are redirected to a community skin lesion clinic in their locality, avoiding the need for a GP appointment. At the clinic, images of the patient’s skin lesion are captured and these images are uploaded to the Skin Analytics teledermatology platform where DERM makes an assessment, resulting in three possible outcomes:
