Wye Valley skin centre opens to patients

A new skin service in Hereford has begun seeing its first patients.

The Wye Valley Skin Centre brings together staff and services delivering skin cancer care which have previously been delivered at a number of Trust premises.

The new centre, based in the Gaol Street clinic buildings, consolidates dermatology, and specifically skin cancer related care services, onto one site – with the team hoping to develop “see and treat” services for serious skin cancers and rashes, linked with their nationally leading Teledermatology service set up during the pandemic.

The Teledermatology service involves holding consultations with patients who can be in their own home and using technology to speak with, and send images to, consultants in the centre.

Earlier this month the Trust’s Dermatology Team, which will be providing services from the new centre, landed the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ) Dermatology Team of the Year award.

“As a team, we’ve worked incredibly hard, innovatively and bravely for our service and patients over the last two years and have achieved in this time what ordinarily might have taken five to ten years,” said Dr James Powell, Dermatology Clinical Lead.

“We safeguarded our service during the initial waves of the Covid pandemic while also establishing services and facilities that will enable us to improve the care and treatment we deliver into the future.

“The services at the new centre include inflammatory, skin cancer, surgical, phototherapy, paediatric and a new counselling room. We will also be able to work more closely with our colleagues in plastic surgery who will shortly be joining us in the new exciting facility,” added James.

“Historically these have been provided at a range of sites – Dermatology and Plastic surgery at our buildings at Belmont, some services at Hereford County Hospital and some based in the Gaol Street building.

“We now have eight clinic rooms (one for children), a wound dressing room, a phlebotomy room, a family support room, three operating theatres, a biopsy room, a recovery area and a new reception area.”

Not only will the creation of the new centre mean staff will be able to see and treat more patients more quickly, it releases valuable space at Hereford County Hospital for other departments to use for outpatient and surgical use, which are key areas of activity as the Trust pulls out the stops to tackle the backlog of patients due to the pandemic.

The Trust has also brought in some new staff to allow it to run the new centre efficiently.