Over 150 people gathered for our reception at the House of Commons on Tuesday 4 November 2025. The afternoon event offered a unique opportunity to discover how pathology services are working at the forefront of our health system, and how pivotal they are to the successful implementation of the NHS 10 Year Health Plan. 

We were delighted to be joined by Dr Simon Opher, MP for Stroud (Labour), who hosted the event and introduced our celebration of pathology and its vital role in moving healthcare from hospital to community, from analogue to digital and shifting the focus from sickness to prevention. 

Dr Opher shared with attendees his experience as a GP and how this had shown him first-hand the importance of pathology to healthcare; it’s vital for patients and key to the successful delivery of the NHS 10-year plan. Diagnostics and pathology services are involved in over 85% of patient pathways, making it central to a functioning health system.
 

Speeches by RCPath Fellows

We’re grateful to Dr Kevin Deans, Professor Sarah Coupland, and Dr Ian Godber for their excellent speeches on pathology’s role in the ‘3 shifts’ in the NHS 10-year plan – disease prevention, shift to digital, and community-based testing and treatment. Our 4th speaker, Professor Adrian Bateman, shared fascinating insights on the vital role of histopathologists in the cancer diagnosis and treatment pathway. Our President Dr Bernie Croal also highlighted the need for investment and reform in the pathology workforce, IT infrastructure and pathology estates during the speeches. 

Networking and interactive stands

Delegates including representatives from industry, government, research, health charities and think tanks were able to speak to a wide range of experts working in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, including cancer, diabetes, inherited diseases and infections at our interactive stands. Over 30 people (the majority of whom were RCPath members) were involved in the development and delivery of the stands. We’re very grateful to all who contributed to the event and its success. There were also 3 industry stands and we would like to thank the industry sponsors for the event, Novo Nordisk, Roche Diagnostics and Illumina. 
 

Feedback and take-home messages

We received positive comments on the event from those who responded to our follow-up feedback survey. One RCPath Fellow who attended said ‘Fantastic event from beginning to end - thank you for making it possible!’ Another, who described themselves as a consultant medic (not in pathology) said ‘Excellent examples of how pathology services can improve population health.’ There were also helpful suggestions on what those who attended would like the College to take forward and advocate for – this included guidance on transitioning to digital pathology, workforce planning being integrated with new technologies that support faster treatment, point of care testing and the interdependencies of the 3 shifts.  

Ongoing engagement with parliamentarians

We were pleased to see a number of parliamentarians (in addition to Simon Opher MP) at the event including Andrew George MP, Sarah Hall MP and The Viscount Stansgate. We will build on this engagement and their participation and use this as a springboard to develop relationships and further links with them. We will also aim to capitalise on the profile-raising achieved by last week’s event in order to run future meetings and events at parliament.