Melanoma Focus

Melanoma Focus runs the Melanoma Helpline, a confidential freephone service on 0808 801 0777 staffed by specialist skin cancer nurses. It is open 1pm to 2pm and 7pm to 9pm Monday to Friday and 7pm to 9pm on Sunday, with a message service outside those hours and an email contact form. The charity states plainly on the helpline page that its nurses cannot diagnose melanoma on the telephone or from a photograph, and points people who have been asked by a GP to send an image to its own teledermatology guidance on how to take one.

It also runs support groups and produces guidelines and information for healthcare professionals as well as patients. Its remit is melanoma rather than the keratinocyte cancers, which is worth knowing: a person with a basal cell carcinoma who telephones will be helped, but the charity built for them is the British Association of Dermatologists' patient information service, and the charity built for the consequences of facial skin surgery is Changing Faces.