External
LabMed is hosting the LabMed Leaders Summit as part of The IBMS Congress (22-25 September 2025).
What is the LabMed Leaders Summit?
The Leaders Summit brings together some of the UK’s most experienced healthcare scientists to explore what effective leadership looks like in today’s fast-moving and complex healthcare environment.
Whether you're a current leader or an emerging one, this Summit offers practical insights, thought-provoking sessions, and inspiration for anyone leading, or preparing to lead, within laboratory medicine.
Why attend?
Learn from national leaders about governance, innovation, digital readiness, and patient safety
Explore how AI and data are transforming leadership and decision-making in diagnostics
Understand the environmental impact of laboratory services — and how leadership can drive sustainability
Network with peers from across the UK and engage with the wider IBMS Congress community
Exclusive member benefit – LabMed members get discounted access
Who should attend?
This event is ideal for:
- Clinical and Biomedical Scientists and Medics in leadership or aspiring roles
- Pathology service managers and audit leads
- Innovation and quality leads
- EDI and sustainability champions in diagnostics
- IBMS Congress attendees seeking leadership-focused content
LabMed Members can book the event at IBMS member rates to attend both the Congress as a whole and/or the Laboratory Medicine Leaders Summit.
To get the member discount, you must use our unique discount link - https://ibmscongress25.eventreference.com/labmed.
Programme
9am
Welcome from the LabMed President
Ian Godber, LabMed President, Consultant Clinical Scientist, QEUH, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde
Abstract
A warm welcome to the second Laboratory Medicine Leaders’ Summit developed by the Association for Laboratory Medicine and hosted at the IBMS Congress.
The introduction to the meeting will overview the current challenges that senior laboratory staff and managers face and highlight new developments in laboratory medicine which will be covered throughout the day.
9.10am
Delivering great organisational leadership
Dennis Dunn MBE, Former Chair of Mid Cheshire Hospitals Foundation Trust
9.35am
Digital readiness: responding to the unexpected
Karen Mitchell, NHS Grampian
10.30am
The missing link in the governance process
Finlay McKenzie, UK NEQAS, Birmingham
11am
Value-added EQA can check clinical appropriateness in the use of assays
Rachel Marrington, Consultant EQA Scientist & Deputy Director, Birmingham Quality (UK NEQAS)
Naomi Elkin, UK NEQAS, Glasgow
11.30am
The role of laboratory EQA in patient safety
Gwen Wark, Berkshire & Surrey Pathology Services
2pm
AI: What can we learn from its application in cancer research
Harriet Unsworth, Cancer Research UK, University of Manchester
Abstract
Artificial intelligence has been heralded as a having the potential to transform healthcare, from drug and biomarker discovery to improved diagnostics and AI decision support tools to improve therapeutic strategies. However, adoption of AI in the NHS is patchy and value can be hard to measure. In this presentation I’ll share my experiences from digital and AI cancer research, and national initiatives to standardise AI for healthcare.
I’ll talk through the potential patient and system impacts of AI transformation in cancer research and cancer care – the good, the bad and the ugly. I’ll use examples from my team’s research and the broader health and care system, to describe ongoing challenges in AI transformation, including data access, NHS IT infrastructure and working in interdisciplinary teams. I’ll also describe some of the new approaches that are being developed to ensure that healthcare AI is transparent and fair for everyone.
I’ll talk through the potential patient and system impacts of AI transformation in cancer research and cancer care – the good, the bad and the ugly. I’ll use examples from my team’s research and the broader health and care system, to describe ongoing challenges in AI transformation, including data access, NHS IT infrastructure and working in interdisciplinary teams. I’ll also describe some of the new approaches that are being developed to ensure that healthcare AI is transparent and fair for everyone.
2.30pm
Algorithmic bias and health inequity: addressing risks in medical artificial intelligence
Joseph Alderman, Clinical Research Fellow, Anaesthesia and Critical Care Doctor, University of Birmingham
Abstract
Health data is highly complex and can be challenging to interpret without knowing the context in which it was created. Data biases can be encoded into artificial intelligence (AI) health technologies, worsening existing health inequalities at scale. The STANDING Together recommendations give guidance to those who are creating and using health data on how to minimise this risk. They were developed via an international consensus process involving representatives from 58 countries. In this session, one of the lead researchers for STANDING Together will talk through the recommendations and how they can help ensure AI health technologies are safe and effective for everyone.
3pm
Project PathLAKE: selecting the right patients for the best therapy
David Snead, University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwickshire
4pm
Diagnostic stewardship: a lever to lower carbon?
Rob Shorten, Consultant Clinical Scientist, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals
Abstract
The climate crisis is a health crisis, contributing to adverse health events globally. The healthcare sector is directly responsible for approximately 5% of the total CO2 emissions of the United Kingdom. The scale of contribution from laboratory testing yet to be accurately quantified, but likely to be sizeable as this underpins all healthcare and contributes to almost every patient pathway.
Over 1.1 billion tests are performed in the NHS in England annually and this is increasing. More than half of this carbon is directly associated with the use of consumable items, such as single-use plastics that are required for these tests. There is increasing evidence of the detrimental outcomes of unnecessary testing, including financial, environmental, and patient harms.
Diagnostic stewardship, essentially doing the right test on the right patient at the right time, is increasing being deployed by services looking to improve the quality of laboratory testing. This presentation will explore the published literature on this subject and detail examples trialled in the speaker's laboratory.
4.30pm
Inappropriate testing: the cost to the planet
Tim Lang, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals
Ticket prices
The prices below are at LabMed/ IBMS member rates.
Find out more by visiting the IBMS Congress website.