An AI system at St Luke’s Hospital in Bradford is helping staff assess suspicious skin lesions more quickly, with clinics now seeing 32 patients per session instead of 24. The change offers a practical example of AI being used to ease pressure on NHS care, while clinicians remain responsible for checking the images and deciding what happens next.
Watch Desk analysis
What happened
BBC News reports that Bradford Teaching Hospitals introduced the DERM system, made by Skin Analytics, in April. A healthcare assistant takes three photographs of a lesion; the AI analyses them in minutes. Patients whose cases are assessed as benign are offered advice and discharged, while suspicious cases are referred to a specialist through a one-stop clinic.
The trust says unnecessary biopsies have fallen by about 10% since the system was introduced. Every image is double-checked by a clinician. The BBC also reports that DERM has been recommended by NICE for NHS use for three years while further evidence is collected, and is now in use at 40 NHS hospital trusts.
Skin Analytics claims the system is 99.9% accurate at ruling out melanoma. That figure is the company’s claim, not a result established by the BBC account. The story also describes a patient whose lesion was flagged as suspicious by the AI but thought likely to be benign after a specialist examination; it is due to be removed and tested.
Why it matters
The reported increase from 24 to 32 patients per session points to a clear operational benefit: staff can assess more people in the same clinic time. The trust also says fewer unnecessary biopsies are being performed. Those are useful outcomes to track alongside the system’s diagnostic performance, particularly while evidence is still being gathered.
The workflow is not AI making a diagnosis alone. Clinicians check every image and handle cases requiring specialist attention. That human review is part of how the service is being used, not an optional footnote.
Our read
This is a more grounded AI story than a promise that software will fix the NHS: a defined task, a reported increase in clinic capacity and clinicians still in the loop. The numbers are encouraging, but the three-year evidence period matters. NHS decision-makers will want to see whether the gains hold up across patients and hospitals, not just whether the system can produce a brisk answer.
What to watch
- Whether the increase in patients seen per session is sustained as more trusts use DERM.
- What evidence emerges during NICE’s three-year NHS recommendation period.
- Whether the reported reduction in unnecessary biopsies continues without missed or delayed diagnoses.
Discussion spark: Should the NHS expand AI-assisted skin checks on the strength of early gains in clinic capacity, or wait for more evidence from the three-year evaluation?
Sources and evidence
- Bradford skin cancer waiting times cut by new AI technology – BBC (5 October 2026, 05:15 UTC)
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