Straightforward trustworthy advice for malignant melanoma patients and carers
Frequently Asked Questions: What should the NHS be doing for me?
The NHS should be giving you the service described in the NICE guidelines.
Your doctor should be referring you to a consultant immediately, who should in turn see you within two weeks of your seeing the doctor. Do not let your GP treat a suspected Melanoma. They generally do a poor job. You should be having your wide local excision within 62 days of GP referral (6 weeks in Wales).
Note that you might wish to have a sentinel node biopsy, though your consultant may not tell you this. The NICE guidelines recognise the importance of this procedure for knowing what your chances or survival are. This procedure must be done with or before the wide excision. It is currently done as part of clinical trials, but also done outside of formal trials to keep the staff's skill levels up.