Skin treatment delays after consultants leave

Patients with severe skin conditions - including cancer - have had treatments delayed, after a team of NHS consultants left in Worcestershire.

A series of resignations and retirements led to the “collapse” of the county’s acute dermatology services last summer, according to Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.

More then 2,350 dermatology patients in the county are currently waiting for diagnosis or treatment, according to the most recent figures.

The trust’s joint chief medical officer said the services had been a “source of sleepless nights”, but said no patients had so far been found to suffer significant harm.

While the services are currently being staffed by a private provider, their running could be handed over to neighbouring Wye Valley Trust in Herefordshire, to make them more resilient.

At a health scrutiny meeting held by county councillors on Friday, joint chief medical officer Dr Julian Berlet said there had been a “real risk of harm to patients”.

“To date we are not aware of any directly attributable significant harm as a result of the waits, but that’s not to say it has not happened,” he said.

Dr Berlet added some patients would have seen their mental health and anxiety suffer through delays.

Senior managers at the county’s acute trust said the staffing issues had coincided with an increase in referrals, up from around 500 to 780 patients a month.

While the trust said cancer referrals had been prioritised, its managing director Stephen Collman said 36 patients were currently waiting more than 62 days for treatment.

That figure has fallen from a peak of 108 in October 2023.

Following the exit of the last substantive consultant in July 2023, a number of private providers were brought in to manage waiting times.

The trust also commissioned a review by the Royal Association of Dermatologists, to examine a deterioration in the relationship between clinicians and senior leaders.

“We wanted to get an independent view of what had happened,” said Stephen Collman, who joined the trust as managing director in November.

“I think it was that feeling of isolation… a feeling that there was a really high workload… and of where the trust was taking the service,” he said.

“People raising those issues… they chose to retire or leave. We have to reflect as a trust and say we didn’t respond well enough to that”.

In order to make dermatology services more resilient, the trust has proposed handing over their running to the neighbouring Wye Valley NHS Trust.

A handover date is dependent on the Herefordshire trust being able to recruit sufficiently, the trust said.

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