# Chelsea and Westminster NHS trust: autonomous AI discharges patients with benign skin lesions without dermatologist review, freeing over 35% of appointments

Page: https://flyvolo.ai/en/changes/ev-20241209-dermatologist-1
Date: 2024-12-09 · Stage: Deployment
Can this record move a task judgement? yes
Occupation: https://flyvolo.ai/en/careers/dermatologist

## Scope

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust's own account (published 2024-12-09) of its teledermatology pathway for urgent suspected skin cancer referrals: since a 2022 pilot it has assessed over 10,000 patients, and from December 2024 the service extended Trust-wide to West Middlesex University Hospital. The system, Skin Analytics' DERM, reads dermatoscope images taken with a smartphone. The Trust states autonomous AI identifies and discharges patients with benign lesions without a dermatologist's review, and reports 97% sensitivity for skin cancer and over 35% of dermatologist appointments released, as its own figures rather than an independent audit. This covers one NHS Trust's urgent suspected skin cancer pathway in England; it says nothing about routine, non-urgent dermatology referrals, private practice, or other health systems, and the accuracy figures are self-reported by the Trust and the AI vendor, Skin Analytics.

## Source

- Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust — news release — https://www.chelwest.nhs.uk/about-us/news/news-archive-old/2024/trust-expands-use-of-regulated-ai-to-safely-speed-up-patient-access-to-skin-cancer-diagnosis-and-treatment (primary source)

## What this means

At this Trust, patients on the urgent skin cancer pathway whose photographed lesions the AI reads as benign are discharged without a dermatologist looking at the case at all — the software's read is the final word for that group, not a second opinion a doctor then checks.

## What it does not show yet

It does not establish what share of referrals actually land in the AI-cleared, no-review group, how often a benign call is later found wrong, or that this pathway holds outside one NHS Trust's urgent-cancer route — ordinary (non-urgent) dermatology referrals and private practice are untouched by this record.

## How to verify it yourself

If you are referred for a suspected skin lesion, ask your clinic or GP whether your images will be assessed by an AI triage system before any doctor sees them, and what happens if you disagree with a 'benign, discharged' result.


More: https://flyvolo.ai/llms.txt