SurgTech 2024: Breakout Sessions

Our theme this year is "Innovating Across the Surgical Pathway" and this reflects the ambitions of the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre (HRC) in Accelerated Surgical Care which starts on the 1st April 2024. As the NIHR Surgical MedTech Co-operative (Surgical MIC) comes to an end on the 31st March 2024 and is replaced by the HRC, this event reflect on the successes of the Surgical MIC, what we've learnt and how we want to build on these lessons in the HRC.

Breakout Sessions

These sessions give delegates the opportunity to explore particular topics and engage with HRC partners and leads. We have six breakout sessions and they will run on both days. The only session that is not replicated on both days is the Industry Engagement session.

Early Careers Research

This will be led by the NIHR Advanced Surgical Technologies (Mr Manish Chand and Dr Adele Nightingale) and Dr Carole Burnett, Early Careers Research Lead at Leeds Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).

Delegates selecting this breakout session will have an interest in understanding how the HRC intends to build capacity for HealthTech research and opportunities for career development.?

The HRC has a remit for delivering training and capacity building activities internally, and externally to industry to build capacity in the generation of evidence for HealthTech development and to improve knowledge of market access requirements.

Industry Engagement

This session will be different for Day 1 and Day 2

Day 1 session will be led by Medilink North of England ( Patrick Trotter ) and he will be showcasing their Medipath Innovation Roadmap. Delegates will gain an understanding of how to cost the key stages of developing a new product.

Day 2 session will be led by Nexus Leeds ( Nathan Berry ), West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board ( Amy Lochtie ) and supported by airclinical ( David Lunn ).

Delegates selecting this breakout session will have an interest in understanding how they can engage with the HRC, as well as any key considerations to enhance their chances of success.? ?

The HRC is expected to work with industry and focus its support on local innovation clusters whilst developing and generating evidence for HealthTech innovations that have the potential to have a national impact.

Marginalised Community Engagement Network

This will be led by BAME Voices (Kursh Siddique) and supported by Manoj Mistry who sits on the NIHR Surgical MIC PPIE Committee.

Delegates selecting this breakout session will have an interest in understanding patient and public involvement and engagement, how it supports HealthTech development, and how innovators can ensure their HealthTech meets the needs for underserved communities.?

Patient and Public Involvement, Engagement and Participation (PPIEP) is central to the working of the NIHR. The HRC is expected to embed equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and the needs of underserved communities in its activities.

Sustainability and Net Zero for MedTech and HealthTech

This will be led by pd-m International (Richard Hall), Revolution Zero, University of Leeds (Pete Culmer), WRM Ltd and Health Innovation Yorkshire and Humber (Pete Waddingham).

Delegates selecting this breakout session will have an interest in understanding sustainable HealthTech and MedTech development, and how this will impact on NHS procurement requirements.?

This is a cross-cutting theme within the NIHR HRC for Accelerated Surgical Care and the focus will be on methods and technologies needed to reduce waste and promote sustainability.

Clinical Trials - Evidence Generation

This will be led by RCS (Eng) Leeds Surgical Trials Centre (Prof Deborah Stocken), Leeds Clinical Trials Research Unit (Neil Corrigan), University of Twente (Prof Maroeska Rovers) and NIHR Bristol BRC (Dr Kerry Avery).

Delegates selecting this breakout session will have an interest in understanding clinical trial methodology and opportunities to collaborate with RCS.?

This is a cross cutting theme for the NIHR HRC for Accelerated Surgical Care and they will work with innovators in the strategic planning of evidence generation and competitive funding bids, providing research methods, health economics, statistical and mixed methods advice and expertise in study design and analysing real world data.

Health Economics - Evidence Generation

This will be led by University of Leeds (Dr David Meads and Dr Armando Vargos-Palacious).

Delegates selecting this breakout session will have an interest in understanding health economics methodology and how they can access this support from the HRC.

This is a cross cutting theme for the NIHR HRC for Accelerated Surgical Care and they will work with innovators in the areas of risk prediction model development and validation, addressing external calibration to identify factors pertinent to different patient groups to streamline pathways to surgery, and identify where surgery is most appropriate.

If this sounds interesting, please register here - https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/surgicalmic/t-xmjajrm