What is DermCAP?
DermCAP (Dermoscopy Capability Acceleration Programme) is a governance-led clinical apprenticeship that helps primary care clinicians develop safe, measurable skin lesion assessment capability through supervised clinical practice and outcome-linked feedback over a 12-month programme.
Through repeated cycles of learning, practice and review of real patient outcomes, clinicians progressively calibrate their decision-making. This supports more consistent clinical decisions, higher-quality referrals and measurable workforce development over time.
How DermCAP Works?
DermCAP develops capability through a structured cycle of learning, clinical practice, outcome-linked feedback and progressive independence.
The stages are:
What problem does DermCAP solve?
- Skin cancer referrals keep rising.
Specialist capacity does not. - Over 800,000 urgent skin cancer referrals are now made annually in England. More than 90% ultimately prove to be benign
- The pressure downstream is obvious.
The causes often begin upstream
DermCAP addresses this problem
DermCAP is designed to improve decision quality at first patient contact through structured supervised practice within primary care.
This supports
- Safer patient management
- More consistent referral decisions
- Improved cancer yield from referrals
- Fewer benign lesions escalating downstream
DermCAP enables
- High-quality dermoscopic imaging as standard
- Development of local expertise within primary care
- Decisions linked to real outcomes over time
Explore for Commissioners
Focused on measurable outcomes, governance, and referral pressure
Improve skin lesion assessment at first contact, with measurable pilot outcomes and governance-led implementation.
Explore for Clinicians & Practices
Structured support, confidence, and feedback
Structured support for clinicians making real-time skin lesion decisions in primary care.