[mattlondon]

Most UK health stuff starts with a GP appointment.

Even for private health care, you usually see a GP first (could be a private GP or NHS, in-person or video) and they then refer you to the next thing whatever that may be. ( N.B. that a NHS GP can give you a referral that you use for private treatment)

There are some things you can just straight up book an appointment for yourself without a referral from a GP, but 95% of the time you start with a GP.

No idea specifically about dermatologists, but my expectation would be that would be the sort of thing that would need a referral for. Perhaps for some "non-medical" procedures and 100% for cosmetic procedures you don't need a referral, but anything even tangentially close to The C Word would almost certainly be sending you down the normal channels.

[alistairSH]

I wonder what % of GP skin consults result in a referral? If it’s even remotely close to a majority, seems like it would be better just going straight to the dermatologist.

Sample of one, but every spot (5+ over the past decade) I’ve asked my dermatologist about has resulted in a biopsy and of those several were cancer.

[fn-mote]

> every spot (5+ over the past decade) I’ve asked my dermatologist about has resulted in a biopsy

Not to be too cynical but... is there a financial incentive for them to do a biopsy?

Of course it might be best practice as well.

[alistairSH]

I’m sure there is an incentive, but at least in my case the rate of biopsy to confirm cancers is greater than 50% so it certainly seems to me like the biopsies are in fact warranted.