Comment: The place for dermatology

Last month I had to present the United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust’s mortality data and action plan at a ‘mortality summit’ with our clinical commissioning group partners and the local area team from NHS England. As a dermatologist, whose specialty is generally regarded as somewhat less than acute, I felt uncomfortable. I recalled the aphorism, ‘skin patients never die, but nor do they get better!’. Of course, our work has changed greatly over the past 20 years; the increasing prevalence of melanoma and the widespread adoption of immunomodulatory treatments ensure we do look after patients in their final months of life and many of our patients do ‘get better’.