Digital imaging cuts skin cancer wait times
Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust fully introduced the service in June 2024. Nearly 2,000 patients have benefited from faster diagnosis and treatment in the first year.
Before the service began, the trust met the NHS target of treating patients within 31 days of a decision to treat in 72 per cent of cases in the first quarter of 2023–24. As of February 2025, 100 per cent of patients were treated within the target timeframe.
Fiona Hayward-Lyon, 63, from Farndon in Nottinghamshire, was referred after noticing a red blemish on her forehead becoming raised. She had photographs taken within three days of seeing her GP, and underwent surgery just over four weeks later, in October.
“I didn’t expect to be seen so quickly. I can now move on and be a little more careful in the sun,” she said.
Her images were reviewed remotely and she was diagnosed with a basal cell carcinoma – a common form of skin cancer that grows slowly and rarely spreads.
Consultant dermatologist Dr Ritu Singla, who treated Mrs Hayward-Lyon, said the service enables clinicians to reassure patients sooner when lesions are benign – non-cancerous – which make up the majority of referrals.
“We can rule out lots of benign lesions, which are the bulk of cases,” she said.
“It also enables us to start treatment sooner for those patients where cancer has been diagnosed.”
Dr Singla added: “Patients are more aware of skin cancer these days, but at the same time in the aftermath of the pandemic we had long waiting lists.
We prioritised, but some patients were waiting months for treatment.”
Only three per cent of patients require an in-person follow-up after initial photography, allowing specialists to focus on confirmed cancer cases needing surgical care.
Clinical photographer Jason Randall explained the imaging process: “It enables the camera to see into the first layer of the skin not clearly visible to the naked eye and crucially the edges of the lesion.”
The images are captured using a dermatoscope – a device that uses polarised light to reveal details beneath the skin’s surface, particularly at the lesion margins where cancer cells may be present.
The initiative supports the government’s NHS 10-year plan, which promotes the use of technology to improve efficiency, productivity and patient outcomes.
