MediWales Connects

The only event of its kind for the health and care community, MediWales Connects is an all Wales NHS collaboration conference.

NHS colleagues from across Wales, local companies and the wider industry sector will join to share clinical innovation in practice to improve patient outcomes.

The aims of the conference are to:

• Highlight and showcase the excellent work and research being carried out by the health and care communities in Wales
• Improve collaborative working between the health boards and research communities
• Raise the profile of NHS Wales and clinical innovation across the UK and help promote recruitment for research
• Support closer working relationships between industry, NHS and research groups and clinical trials capabilities

09:00 Plenary:
The future for health and care research in Wales: challenges and opportunities, Professor Kieran Walshe, Director Health and Care Research Wales

11:30 - 12:30 Excellence in research delivery 

Health and Care Research Wales will also be hosting a seminar at this event.

Describing clinical research as the UK ‘lifeline’ during the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK strategy Saving and Improving Lives: The Future of UK Clinical Research Delivery (DHSC, 2021) addresses a vision to underpin UK research delivery in order to secure patient centred research at the heart of services; sustain efficiency and speed and develop resilience in a research delivery service. Never have we been so aware of the value and importance of research into new medicines, treatments and care. 

This session looks at how a One Wales approach to research delivery has allowed sponsors, researchers, NHS staff and patients to collaborate in order to achieve research excellence with tangible patient benefit throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The delivery model has since been adapted and applied beyond the pandemic context, for example in cancer diagnostics, and it continues to provide an ambitious blueprint for research delivery that meets the UK vision and reaches patients and participants throughout Wales.

Chaired by Dr Nicola Williams, Director of Support & Delivery at Heath and Care Research Wales, the panel for this session includes:

• Dr Andrew Freedman, All-Wales Principal Investigator for the COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Programme
• Dr Orod Osanlou, Public Health Wales Principal Investigator for the Novavax trial/ Interim Director, North Wales Clinical Research Facility
• Professor Andrew Carson-Stevens, Health and Care Research Wales Specialty Lead for Primary Care
• Sarah Townsend, Operational Lead for the Simplify trial/ Head of Research & Development, Velindre University NHS Trust