President elect presents to parliamentary committee

The discussion was multifaceted and examined the role of data in clinical research, embedding health tech at the core of patient needs and how the government can effectively partner with the private, academic, and third sectors.

Representing the IBMS, Debra acknowledged that technology and clinical innovation would be vital in driving earlier diagnosis while stressing the importance of the health service maintaining a highly-skilled, trained, competent and registered biomedical workforce.

Debra said:

“Healthcare is traditionally reactive rather than proactive; when industry creates diagnostic products, they need to be thought through with the patient pathway in mind with the intent to shorten the patient journey and deliver improved outcomes.

Faster, more complete diagnostics to identify at-risk populations to ascertain the need for intervention and better define capacity requirements and make the best use of resources. Moving from this current reactive state will allow diagnostics to drive care pathways speeding up diagnosis and utilising capacity and diagnostics in new ways, which will allow for a transformational approach to medicine and diagnostics.

The IBMS needs to support any approach that speeds up the adoption of new approaches to faster, earlier diagnostics. We must be the ones providing the education and training of scientists to deliver the research and applications working in collaboration with our industry, academic and third sector partners. On top of that, our members are perfectly placed within the health system and are already integrated into R&D processes.”

To increase its engagement with politicians and policymakers, the IBMS has recently joined Policy Connect, a membership-based, not-for-profit, cross-party think tank. They bring together parliamentarians and government in collaboration with academia, business and civil society to inform, influence and improve UK public policy through debate, research and innovative thinking to improve people's lives.

IBMS chief executive David Wells said:

“One of the routes that we can improve our engagement with politicians and parliamentarians, an area that COVID-19 has highlighted the importance to us, is for us to join an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). These groups are an impartial route to engage with the government across the pollical divide to ensure we get our voice out there."

During the pandemic, IBMS President Allan Wilson took part in an All Party Parliamentary Group session with Rachel Lieberman from RCPath voicing members and enabling the profession to assist in training the workforce required to staff new testing platforms in Pillar 1 and Pillar 2.

The government released the Future of UK clinical UK research delivery plan following the meeting.