Dear Kent Community Health NHS Foundation 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 FOI (KENT COMMUNITY HEALTH NHS FOUNDATION TRUST),

Thank you for your response.
My apologies that I have requested information which you do not hold.

Kind regards
C.Tuson