IBMS Congress 2025

Nicky Hollowood

Harrogate & District NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Joseph Burt

MHRA

No bio provided

Annette Thomas

National POCT Clinical Lead, National Pathology Programme, NHS Wales Executive

Annette Thomas is a Consultant Clinical Biochemist at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board with over 40 years’ experience in Laboratory Medicine, over 20 years of which has been as Director of Weqas, a well-respected International EQA provider and Reference Measurement Laboratory.

Annette is also the National Point of Care (POCT) Clinical lead for Wales, a seconded position to the Wales NHS Executive responsible for delivering the strategy plan for POCT.  She represents POCT on Welsh Government advisory Committees and chairs the National POCT Strategic Board and the POCT Delivery Group.

She is a member of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) Task Force on Global Lab Quality, the IFCC POCT Committee and past chair of the IFCC Committee on Analytical Quality.

She has previously held posts on the Executive Board of the European Committee for External Quality Assurance Programmes in Laboratory Medicine (EQALM), and chair of the National Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine (ACB) Audit Committee in the UK.

In 2019 she received the Healthcare Science Lifetime Achievement award from the Welsh Government and the EQALM Adam Uldall Award for her contribution to promoting quality in laboratory medicine.

Mr Giles Bond-Smith

Consultant HPB, AWR and Emergency Surgeon, Clinical Director for Surgery, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Mr Bond-Smith is a Consultant Surgeon working in Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Mr Bond-Smith has transformed the Surgical Emergency Unit in to one of the gold-standard Emergency Surgery Units in the United Kingdom. This has involved ensuring optimal flow of the acute surgical patient through the surgical assessment triage area. Within this area point of care testing (POCT) has been instrumental in driving quick decision making by the surgical team.

Due to the successful implementation of POCT in the acute surgical arena Mr Bond-Smith has spent many years assessing and analysing POCT machines to find the optimal machines available for a variety of different clinical settings.

Roanna George

University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust

No bio provided

Thomas Butler

Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow

No bio provided

Lisa Vipond

Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust

No bio provided

Ian Smith

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Ian was previously based at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, managing laboratory services across antenatal and new-born screening; mass spectrometry, and Point of Care Testing (POCT).

For over 10 years Ian led on POCT for the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and worked with Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust to develop community POCT services.

Oxford’s POCT team has evaluated and introduced a variety of POCT applications across hospital and community settings, and now supports a service that incorporates over five hundred connected devices.

Since December Ian has been working with Veritie Group, a new company, developing POCT applications using Raman spectroscopy.

Terri Robinson

Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust

No bio provided

Ryan Cooper

National Point of Care Testing Lead, NHS National Services Scotland

Ryan has had a varied career across four Scottish health boards, originating as a Cellular Pathology Biomedical Scientist. Moving from Cellular  Pathology to Blood Sciences and wider Diagnostic laboratories as a Quality manager. He spent three years with UKAS as an Assessment Manager, assessing ISO 15189:2012 across all four nations.

Now with NHS National Services Scotland, Ryan lead the Point of Care Testing programme, which started early in the pandemic, now spreading to wider POCT projects.

Ruth Jones

Swansea Bay University

No bio provided

Capt. Patrick Bardi

Ministry of Defence

No bio provided