All Party Parliamentary Group on Skin

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Skin (APPGS) was established in 1994. It has a membership including Members of Parliament from all political parties, Members of the House of Lords, health professionals, patient groups and pharmaceutical companies. The Group was set up as a result of a campaign to raise awareness of skin issues in Parliament by the National Eczema Society. The Society, along with other patient organisations and industry, is supported by the Skin Care Campaign, which is an organisation that brings together all the UK national skin patient support groups.  The Skin Care Campaign, amongst other bodies (Including the BAD and PCDS), provides resources and funding to support the Secretariat of the APPGS.

The APPGS is seeking progress on a number of areas:

• working to improve delivery of treatment to those with skin conditions;

• working to educate Government as to the ways in which treatment management can be improved and made more efficient;

• examining other socio-economic and environmental factors in skin disease, such as occupational factors.

The Group holds a small number of well-attended and informative meetings each year. These offer MPs and others the opportunity to understand more about the challenges faced by different types of skin disease and the services that are needed to meet the holistic needs of each parson with a skin disease. Twenty four per cent of all GP patient episodes are skin related - it comprises one of the greatest calls on GP time and yet training for GPs in this area is scarce, if existent at all.

Contact
Berkeley Greenwood
APPGS
Vicarage House
58-60 Kensington Church Street
London
W8  4DB

Tel: (020) 7368 1622
Fax: (020) 7368 3101
Email: berkeley.greenwood@appgs.co.uk