A foundation has thanked local charities for their donations which will buy new skin cancer screening kits for Royal Preston Hospital.

Patients referred to the hospital with suspicious moles and other suspect lesions that could indicate skin cancer will now undergo examination with the very latest in screening equipment.

Preston charities the Rhodi Charitable Trust and The HVM Foundation have donated £3,382 to the Rosemere Cancer Foundation so it can purchase four new dermatoscopes.

The upgraded dermatocopes, 'Opticular Visionmed Dermatoscopes', are for the quartet of skin cancer clinical nurse specialists, who run dermoscopy clinics at the hospital, which are attended by more than 200 people a month – 2,400 annually.

A dermatoscope is a hand-held device similar to a camera that has a light source and magnifier to enable the skin cancer nurse specialist to check for malignant melanoma (skin cancer), which according to the latest figures from Cancer Research UK is the now country’s fifth most common cancer with cases on the increase.

Rebecca Arestidou is Rosemere Cancer Foundation’s grants, projects and impacts officer.

She said: “We are very grateful to Rhodi Charitable Trust and The HVM Foundation for their support on this project.”

 “The team running the dermoscopy clinics obviously already had dermatoscopes but the new ones are much better. 

“Without the help of Rhodi Charitable Trust and The HVM Foundation we wouldn’t have been able to upgrade the team’s dermatoscopes as such an upgrade isn’t part of standard NHS provision. 

"Now people referred to the clinics know they are being examined with the very latest in screening kit, which should help to ensure not only earlier detection of malignant melanomas but also, reduce the frequency of unnecessary surgical excisions of benign lesions.”

The Opticular Visionmed Dermatoscopes allow for the visualisation of sub-surface skin structures usually not visible to the naked eye. 

Habibullah Munshi is from the Rhodi Charitable Trust and The HVM Foundation.

He said: “Rhodi Charitable Trust and The HVM Foundation aim to provide support to various good causes. Supporting local charities and causes is particularly important to us. As such, we are delighted to work in partnership with Rosemere Cancer Foundation to fund the new dermatoscopes.

"We are pleased that our contribution will help thousands of local people annually.”

The Rosemere Cancer Foundation works to bring world class cancer treatments and services to cancer patients from throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria being treated at Rosemere Cancer Centre, the region’s specialist cancer treatment and radiotherapy centre at the Royal Preston Hospital, and also at another eight local hospital cancer units across the two counties.