Some things should not wait for the next free routine appointment. Some things should not wait for the next free routine appointment. Telephone the practice and say what is happening, or go to an emergency room, if you have a mole or a mark that has changed shape, colour or size, that has become raised or uneven, or that bleeds, itches or will not heal; a sore anywhere that has not healed in three weeks; a rash that is spreading quickly, especially with fever, blistering, or peeling skin; a painful rash in a band on one side of the body, particularly near an eye; redness that is hot, swollen, tender and spreading, which can be a deep skin infection; a new rash after starting a medicine, especially with mouth or eye involvement; or a child under three months with any widespread rash. If you have been treated here and something is worse rather than better after a procedure, telephone us rather than waiting for the review appointment. We would far rather field a call that turns out to be nothing.
- 1Choose a clinician
- 2Choose a day
- 3Choose an hour
- 4Your details
Which clinician?
Each keeps their own book and their own examination room. If you are not sure, choose any available and the calendar will show every free hour across all four.
Which day?
Days with an hour still free are shown in white with a dot. Everything else is either outside the working week, fully booked, or already past.
Which hour?
Your details
We need a name, a telephone number and an email address — the email is where your confirmation and your reminder go, and the telephone number is how we reach you if something changes.
That hour is yours
Bring a list of every medicine you take, the actual tubes and bottles of anything you have been putting on your skin, and any biopsy report or letter from a previous practice. Come with skin you would recognise — no makeup if you can manage it, no nail polish if the appointment concerns your nails, and no fake tan in the fortnight before a skin examination. Arrive about ten minutes early the first time; there is a history form to complete. Everything else is on /first-visit.html.
Before you book
Which appointment, and how long it is
A new patient appointment is thirty minutes. A full skin examination — the whole skin, in a gown, with a dermatoscope — is forty-five, and it is the appointment that finds what you cannot see yourself. Patch testing and children’s appointments are an hour. Follow-ups are shorter.
Unlike some specialities, dermatology frequently diagnoses and treats in the same visit, and where a biopsy is needed we would rather take it there and then than book you back. You leave holding a named diagnosis and a written plan with a stopping point on it. Self-pay prices are on /pricing.html, and how billing works — including which side of the medical and cosmetic line you are on — is on /insurance-and-fees.html.
Questions
Booking — the questions we are asked most
How does the online calendar know what is free?
It reads the same schedule the clinician keeps. Each of them sets their own working days and hours, their lunch break, and any hours they have blocked out — and every appointment already booked, whether it came from this page or from a telephone call, removes that hour from the calendar immediately. So an hour showing on screen is an hour that is genuinely free.
Something on my skin has changed. Should I book online?
Telephone instead, and use the word changed. A mark that is new, growing, darkening, becoming raised or uneven, bleeding, itching or refusing to heal is triaged differently from a routine appointment, and it should not sit in the next free online slot several weeks out. The same applies to a rash that is spreading fast, a rash with fever or blistering, or any widespread rash in a baby.
Why can I not book an appointment for later today?
Each clinician sets a minimum notice period so that nobody is booked into a slot they are already standing in. Past hours and anything inside that notice window drop off the calendar automatically as the day goes on. If you need to be seen today and nothing is showing, telephone the practice.
What happens after I book?
You get an email straight away with the details and two links: one to confirm the appointment and one to cancel it. If you booked more than a day ahead you also get a reminder the evening before. Confirming takes one click and it simply tells us to expect you.
What if I do not confirm?
Nothing is cancelled. The appointment stays exactly where it is and shows on the clinician's calendar as unconfirmed, which usually means somebody telephones you on the morning. Only you can cancel your appointment — not confirming is not a cancellation, and we will not give your hour away because you did not click a link.
Can I cancel online?
Yes, using the cancel link in any of the emails, at any point up until the appointment starts. Once the appointment time has passed the link stops working — past appointments cannot be cancelled online, which is deliberate. If you need to talk to us about an appointment that has already happened, telephone the practice.
Do I have to pick a particular clinician?
No. Choose “any available” and the calendar shows every free hour across all four books, then tells you who each one belongs to before you confirm. If you would rather see somebody specific — because of what you are coming in about, or because you have seen them before — pick them and you will see only their hours. For anything ongoing, staying with the same clinician is genuinely better care.
Can I ask what something is when I book?
You can describe it, and that helps us set aside the right amount of time. What we will not do is tell you what it is before examining it, and we do not look at photographs. There is a whole page on why that rule is firm rather than cautious: /no-diagnosis-online.html.
This page is not medical advice, and it is not a diagnosis. Nothing on this website is medical advice for you in particular, and it is not a diagnosis. These pages describe conditions in general terms so that you arrive knowing what the questions are — they cannot tell you which condition you have, because that requires somebody to look at your skin, feel it, ask you a hundred questions and frequently take a sample of it. Two conditions on this website can look identical in a photograph and need opposite treatments. If something on your skin is new, changing, painful or not healing, the useful next step is an appointment rather than more reading.
Or simply telephone us
Would rather talk to somebody?
Telephone the practice and we will book you in, tell you which of the four is the right person for what you are asking about, and answer anything you want to ask first. And if something on your skin has changed, telephone rather than booking online and say that word — it is triaged differently and it should not sit in the next free routine slot.