Message from the Chair – November 2023

Hello everyone,

As we are only eight days away from the Annual Conference, this will be my last message as Chair. I’ll discuss my time as Chair in my report to the AGM next Friday rather than here as I want to give the major part of this message to issuing a statement we have drafted about Teledermatology and the Institute’s role in the Teledermatology Roadmap which is being rolled out by NHS England. This statement will also be available on the website.

The NHS England (NHSE) Teledermatology (TD) Roadmap and the role of our profession within it has created much discussion amongst our members. The roadmap was developed to ‘support planning and delivery of transformation of dermatology services. It is aimed at clinicians, managers and transformation leads working at a local, integrated care system (ICS) or regional level.’ The published roadmap (How teledermatology is shaping the future of NHS care) was created in consultation with IMI, consultant dermatologists and members of the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD).

In order to contribute to the process, IMI established a Teledermatology Working Party in early 2023, and included representatives from Wales and Scotland, for their experience in telemedicine in remote and rural areas. The group were invited to sit on the NHS National Cancer Programme NHSE National Teledermatology Delivery Group, as well as advising the National Outpatient Recovery and Transformation Programme.

IMI used the opportunity to ensure clinical photographers be an integral part of the process. NHSE listened to our concerns every step of the way and consulted with IMI on a weekly basis on matters concerning role descriptors, skillsets, training, image quality and ongoing support for the roadmap. They recognised the importance of quality images in the new patient care pathway, and agreed the use of professional clinical photographers as best practice (confirmed in the published paper), and those trained or directly linked to a professional clinical photographer, wherever they work.

It is essential that each medical illustration department and/or service leads make efforts to engage with dermatologists and senior management to establish their involvement on a local level. (Many departments are already undertaking TD and similar work, with and without the use of mobile devices and apps).

Of course this presents a challenge: the TD Roadmap relies on people (photographers) to capture the images for assessment, and as a small profession, we recognise many departments are already struggling to recruit qualified staff. IMI are therefore engaging with NHSE to consider how the demand for TD photography roles can be met, and how we can lead and support in the training of other health professionals to take photographs where required.

The IMI Teledermatology Working Party have strived to consolidate best practice and provide a variety of training resources that professional clinical photographers can use to standardise training practices across the UK, be it in a large medical illustration department, in community centres, or in a single-handed GP practice. We are working with NHSE and members of the BAD Teledermatology and Artificial Intelligence Working Group to agree a funding model to support both IMI practical and online courses, and funding for regional clinical photography leads has been requested (to mirror that in NHS Wales). Discussions are also ongoing with other groups, including NHS Improvement (NHSI), Health Education England (HEE) and the British Dermatology Nursing Group (BDNG)

This activity has no doubt raised the profile of our profession within the Department of Health, the Health Minister himself having visited a number of IMI members’ departments to see how professional clinical photographers support and/or manage TD pathways. IMI will continue working on this initiative, providing progress reports to Council and periodic updates in IMI News. Our focus is to place clinical photographers and educators in the pathway wherever we can, whilst offering advice, support and resources to our members to address local opportunities and challenges.

A dedicated email address as been set up for this purpose: teledermatology@imi.org.uk

I’ve two more things to mention before I sign off.

The first is to apologise to you all for the delay in receiving your copies of the latest edition of the Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine. Unfortunately, the publishers have run into some problems with their distribution process and although it has been printed, getting it out to everyone  has proven to be problematical. Tim Zoltie is working hard with T&F to expedite a speedy resolution and I hope that the Journal will be dropping through your letterboxes before too long.

The second thing is to let those of you who are attending the Conference in Cardiff next week know that pre booking for workshops will be available from 09:00 on Monday 6th November at: https://www.imi.org.uk/conference-2023-2/ .

Oh, actually, I meant three more things; here’s the third one and it’s just as important as the others. The new Code of Professional Conduct is now available on the website. Please make sure you follow this link, download the document, read it and keep it handy. It’s the framework by which we should all be working. You’ll also find a poster which you can download and display in your departments so your patients, your staff and other colleagues can see the professional guidelines to which you work. https://www.imi.org.uk/resources/code_of_professional_conduct/

That’s it! Thanks for reading the messages from the Chair, I hope you’ve found them informative and helpful. I just need to add how pleased I am to be handing over the Chair to the safe hands of Cat Lamoon. I know she’ll do a great job and I hope you will support her as you have me.

Thank you

Nick