Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential causes of trends in the number of people being diagnosed with melanoma.

Diagnoses of skin cancers, including melanoma, have been increasing. NHS England and other National Health Service organisations, nationally and locally, publish information on the signs and symptoms of many different types of cancer, including melanoma. This information can be found at sources such as the NHS.UK website.

As well as raising awareness, there have been changes in the way skin cancers, including melanoma, are diagnosed. NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time national report provided recommendations to encourage the wider use of technology to ensure skin cancer patients get faster and more equitable access to care.

NHS England has been rolling out teledermatology services, which allow a virtual review of dermoscopic images to identify skin cancers. In providers where this has been fully implemented, improvements in workforce capacity have enabled up to double the number of patients to be reviewed per clinic. This has also resulted in an improved performance for the Faster Diagnosis Standard.