11 September 2024
AXREM is the UK trade association representing the interests of suppliers of diagnostic medical imaging, radiotherapy, healthcare IT and care equipment including patient monitoring in the UK.
On the 3rd September AXREM published the associations strategic priorities 2025/27 with a Parliamentary Reception. On a warm sunny afternoon the AXREM community came out in force at the Palace of Westminster, and met at the Terrace Pavilion welcoming almost 200 attendees from members, key stakeholders, partners and parliamentarians.
The event was opened with a keynote speech from Minster Merron, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, who was supportive of the publication and spoke about the governments ambitions around some of the pillars of AXREM’s Strategic Priorities and the pledge to double scanner capacity during their term.
There were further speeches from AXREM CEO, Sally Edgington who spoke about the growth of the association, now representing 70 companies and having grown in the last 5 years by over 300%, she also spoke about recent successes as well as representation which shows the depth of the associations work.
Jeevan Gunaratnam, AXREM Chair and Head of Government Affairs/ Independent Sector at Philips spoke about the strategic priorities and the role of AXREM collaborating with key stakeholders to deliver these.
Tim Farron, Members of Parliament who also kindly sponsored the event, spoke about the challenges his constituents face in having accessibility to radiotherapy and cancer treatments, and the work he has been doing with the All party Parliamentary Group for Radiotherapy and Radiotherapy UK to tackle this, and he gave the hard hitting reminder that 1 in 2 of us will get Cancer in our lifetime.
The speeches ended with Jeevan Gunaratnam having a fireside chat with Andrea Rockall, Clinical Chair of Radiology at Imperial College and Hon Consultant Radiologist at both Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and The Royal Marsden Hospital and President of the European Society of Radiology. They spoke about ECR 2025 and the sustainability theme, with Andrea giving some great examples of work that has been done at Imperial.
They also spoke about the many challenges facing today’s NHS, how we work together to improve early diagnosis and improved outcomes and finally they spoke about what sets the NHS apart from other health systems around the world.
Jeevan Gunaratnam, AXREM Chair and Head of Government Affairs/ Independent Sector at Philips said upon the release “I was delighted to attend the launch of AXREM’s Strategic Priorities 2025-2027 at a Parliamentary Reception at the House of Commons. Our priorities outline the key areas of focus for AXREM members in how we can work in partnership and collaboration with Government, the NHS and a wider network of key stakeholders across healthcare, many of whom were well represented at the event. It was a great opportunity to hear from a number of key voices who reflected on the current landscape and challenges – and also on the positive impact of AXREM on our healthcare community.
I particularly welcomed comments from Baroness Merron, reconfirming Government’s commitment to investing in health technology infrastructure and highlighting the importance of working in close partnership with industry.
Finally, we were also able to recognise the work of our Future Leaders Council, who launched their ‘State of the Nation’ report – a document that complements the work behind the Strategic Priorities and sets the stage for the next body of work from our trade association.”
Huw Shurmer, AXREM Vice Chair and Strategic and Government Relationship Manager at Fujifilm Healthcare UK said “AXREM membership is growing. Our members have prioritised government engagement in order to work with politicians and policy makers to tackle the pressures facing the health service. Where better than the House if Commons to show our strength in numbers and encourage political parties to engage with us for realistic solutions to these pressure”.
Sally Edgington, AXREM Chief Executive Officer said “This event demonstrated the depth of our work now, and what an engaged community we have created. It was great to see representation from royal colleges and societies, charities, government departments, regulatory organisations, our partners and too many more to mention. Collaboration really is the key to AXREM delivering our strategic priorities and the launch is just the start, we have the hard work to do over the next 2 years, so watch this space!”.
You can download a copy of Strategic Priorities 2024-27 here: https://www.axrem.org.uk/resource/axrem-strategic-priorities-2025-27/
