For most of my career, point of care testing sat at the edge of the conversation. It was the analyser in the corner of a ward, the glucose meter nobody owned, the line in a pathology budget that only got attention when something went wrong. That has changed. Testing outside the laboratory is now central to how the NHS and independent providers plan to deliver care, and the people deciding how it is governed, funded and bought are, for the most part, laboratory leaders.
That is why MEDLAB LIVE 2027 matters to our community. On 5 and 6 May 2027 at ExCeL London, a large share of those leaders will be in one place. POCTIFY is a media partner of the event, and this is our guide for point of care coordinators, laboratory teams, clinic and pharmacy owners, and the suppliers who work with all of them.
Why point of care testing matters now
The direction of travel is clear. The NHS 10 Year Health Plan for England sets out a shift from hospital to community care, and much of that shift depends on getting a reliable result where the patient is: in a community diagnostic centre, an urgent treatment centre, a GP surgery, a pharmacy, a virtual ward or a private clinic. A result in minutes means a decision in the same visit, one fewer appointment and, often, one fewer admission.
The other half of the story is accountability. The point of care requirements that used to live in their own standard are now part of ISO 15189:2022, the standard UK medical laboratories are accredited against. The laboratory that signs off a device remains answerable for its quality control, for the competency of the people using it and for the results it produces, at every site it reaches. Every step that testing takes away from the laboratory adds to that responsibility.
So the future of point of care testing is not only being decided at device launches. It is being decided in the same rooms where pathology networks plan their services, regulators set expectations and procurement teams write tenders. MEDLAB LIVE puts those rooms under one roof.
What MEDLAB LIVE is
Plenty of laboratory events are built around research. MEDLAB LIVE is built around the clinical delivery of results that change what happens to a patient. Its organiser, Terrapinn, describes it as an exhibition and congress for the entire clinical laboratory ecosystem, and it is co-located with London Lab Live, so the wider laboratory community is in the same building. The organisers expect:
- 3,000+ attendees
- 150+ exhibitors
- 100 speakers
- 1,000 senior level buyers
The organisers say budget holders from all 29 NHS pathology networks have confirmed to speak, which is rare for any single event. It also makes MEDLAB LIVE one of the clearest views you will get of how laboratory procurement is likely to look over the next few years, from the people who will be writing those requirements.
The programme covers digital laboratories, AI, genomics, precision medicine, laboratory automation, point of care testing and the future of pathology services. Visitor passes are free.
Who will be there, seen from the point of care
Read the draft programme (subject to change, as every programme is) with point of care in mind and it maps almost exactly onto the people who shape testing outside the laboratory.
- The people setting national direction. Professor Joanne Martin, National Clinical Director for Pathology at NHS England; Dr Martin Myers, Co-Clinical Lead for Pathology in NHS England's Getting It Right First Time programme; Dr Alec Price-Forbes, National Chief Clinical Information Officer, whose remit covers how results reach the patient record; and Dr Shanker Vijayadeva, GP Lead for Digital Transformation in Primary Care, where a great deal of point of care testing now happens.
- The people who regulate and inspect. Jacob George, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer at the MHRA, which regulates the devices themselves; Dr Rachel Marringdon, Deputy Director and Consultant Clinical Scientist at Birmingham Quality, UK NEQAS; and Joe Emmerson, Head of Clinical Engineering at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.
- The networks that sign off. Synnovis and SYNLAB UK and Ireland, North West London Pathology, South West London Pathology, the East and South East London Pathology Partnership, Wessex Pathology, the Black Country Pathology Service, the Peninsula Pathology Network, Berkshire and Surrey Pathology Services, and Debra Padgett, Clinical Pathology Lead for the North East and North Cumbria pathology network.
- The independent sector, where point of care is growing fastest. HCA Healthcare UK, The London Clinic, Health Services Laboratories, and Practice Plus Group, represented by its Head of Pathology Services and Medical Devices.
- The people who buy. The NHS London Procurement Partnership, NHS Blood and Transplant, the Welsh Government and the Association of British HealthTech Industries. For anyone in point of care, these are the conversations that decide what goes into the next round of tenders.
Lord Carter of Coles, whose reviews shaped how English pathology is organised today, is also on the programme.
Who should go from our community
- Point of care coordinators and leads. Hear how networks and regulators are thinking about governance, staffing and digital records, and take back evidence for the case you are making internally.
- Laboratory managers and biomedical scientists with point of care responsibility. Compare how other networks run quality control, competency and EQA across dozens of sites.
- Clinic, pharmacy and private provider owners adding testing to their services. See the equipment side by side and understand what the laboratory world will expect of you.
- Manufacturers and distributors. Meet the people who decide what gets bought, in a single place, over two days.
For suppliers: attending is not the same as being met
Terrapinn makes a fair point in its own material: watching buyers from the audience is not selling to them. A visitor sees the budget holders on stage and might catch one in the coffee queue. Exhibitors and sponsors meet them across a table, through a meeting programme in which the organiser's team approaches buyers months in advance and only books a meeting if the buyer is interested. Their claim is that ten meetings like that can stand in for six to twelve months of outreach. Having seen from both sides how long those first meetings take, I would not argue with the range.
Whichever route you take, a few things make the difference:
- Bring evidence, not a brochure. Verification data from real settings, EQA performance and what your device does when a control fails.
- Have the governance answers written down. Data protection, how results are recorded and audited, and the regulatory status of the device. A vague answer ends the conversation.
- Know the full cost. Buyers compare the cost per reportable result, including controls, EQA, training and service, not the price of the box.
- Follow up within 48 hours, with the one document they asked for.
The questions laboratory leaders ask about point of care
From my years inside hospital point of care teams, these are the questions that decide most conversations. They are worth answering whether you are buying, running or selling.
- Who on site owns the result, and how can that be shown?
- How is operator competency recorded, and can an untrained user be stopped?
- What happens to a result if it never reaches the patient record?
- How are quality control failures handled, and who is told?
- Which EQA scheme covers the test, and how has it performed?
- What does training look like for 300 occasional users, not 30 regular ones?
- What is the true cost per reportable result?
- How is a field safety notice handled across every site at once?
See you in May
MEDLAB LIVE takes place on 5 and 6 May 2027 at ExCeL London. Visitor registration is free, and exhibition and sponsorship enquiries go through the same page. We will be there across both days, and if you work in point of care testing we would be glad to meet you.
POCTIFY is a media partner of MEDLAB LIVE 2027. Event details, figures and the speaker programme are from the organiser, Terrapinn, and the programme is a draft that may change.