Melanoma Skin Cancer information
Dear Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust,
Please could you provide the following information in relation to your delivery of care, for those patients newly diagnosed with Melanoma cancer at your Trust. Could you please provide this information in electronic format back to this email address.
If you could pass this to your ‘Skin Cancer Clinic’ or relevant department to complete, I would appreciate this.
1. Within your NHS Trust could you confirm what ‘follow up regime’ you normally provide for newly diagnosed patients by Melanoma Stage (IA-IIC) and the number of years (1 to 5) the follow up continues for, in line with your clinical protocols? To help with completion we have inserted a table below. Or please provide back in excel if easier.
|Melanoma Stage at diagnosis| |No. follow up visits in 1st Year | |No. follow up visits in 2nd Year | |No. follow up visits in 3rd Year | |No. follow up visits in 4th Year | |No. follow up visits in 5th Year |
lA
lB
llA
llB
llC
2. Could you please provide a copy of the latest service specification for your Melanoma skin cancer service at the Trust, which shows the care pathway that you provide? Normally found under ‘Schedule 2’ of the Standard contract in place, with your commissioner
3. Could you please confirm if you use any ‘send away dermatopathology services’ within your NHS Trust? A send away or referral service is one where the pathology work is contracted out to a third party laboratory. Yes or No
4. Could you please confirm for your Trust in 2018/19, the following numbers of newly diagnosed Melanoma skin cancer patients and the number of these who have received a subsequent Sentinel Lymph Node biopsy by Melanoma Stage?
To help with the completion, we have inserted a table below for ease.
| Stage | | Total Patients reviewed | | Total Sentinel lymph nodes completed |
ALL
IA
IB
IIA
IIB
IIC
Please note: To help with this question 4, the OPCS code for Sentinel lymph node is ‘O14.2 + ICD-10 code C43 Malignant melanoma of skin’, then supported by the cancer stage.
Thank you very much for your time and support on this matter and if any questions please do let me know.
Yours faithfully,
C.Tuson
Dear C Tuson,
Freedom of Information Request F21/0019
Thank you for your freedom of information request received on 15 April 2021.
Your request will now be considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. You will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days after the date of receipt as defined by the Act, subject to the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third party. In some circumstances we may be unable to achieve this deadline. If this is likely you will be informed and given a revised timescale at the earliest opportunity.
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We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, we do remain committed to responding to your request and will respond as soon as we are able.
Trust's across the country have refocused resources to assist frontline staff to combat Covid-19 during this difficult period. The Trust will not be in a position to respond to certain FOI requests due to the increasing operational pressures.
Please could you confirm whether you still wish to have this processed as an FOI request, in light of the already burdensome situation on the NHS?
Thank you in advance of your support.
Kind regards
Freedom of Information Office
: [Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust request email]
+ Trust Headquarters, Health and Wellbeing Centre, Sandwell General
+ Hospital, Lyndon, West Bromwich B71 4HJ
Dear C Tuson,
Freedom of Information Request F21/0019
Thank you for your freedom of information request received on 15 April 2021.
As you are aware Trust's across the country have refocused resources to assist frontline staff to combat Covid-19 during this difficult period and we have been no different, so apologies for the delay in providing a response to your FOI request.
Given that your request was made some considerable time again, before expanding further effort to obtain the information you require, I would be grateful if you could confirm, within the next 5 working days, if you still require this information. If not then the request will automatically be closed.
If you still require the information we will progress this as quickly as we can, but do appreciate your patience with this.
Thank you in advance of your support.
Kind regards
Freedom of Information Office
: [Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust request email]
+ Trust Headquarters, Health and Wellbeing Centre, Sandwell General
+ Hospital, Lyndon, West Bromwich B71 4HJ
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