In 2021, the BAD surveyed every trust in the UK, including the devolved nations, to gain a picture of the current state of inpatient care, including on-call arrangements, location of beds and treatments provided.

The survey found that there was a significant variation in the level of care provided to patients presenting with emergency and acute skin conditions out of hours requiring specialised inpatient care in both. Many tertiary hospitals and NHSE specialised centres do not have SLAs in place to care for patients across their region and to deal with referrals outside of their catchment population. As a result, the BAD formed an Out of Hours (OOH) WPG in late 2021 to identify key inpatient service standards for acute and emergency dermatology patients and the regional service models to improve specialised access to care. A national dermatology inpatient consultation was undertaken in September 2022 of these particular areas, with the published report below.