The 22nd Annual BARS Conference

26th - 27th September 2024

The Crowne Plaza Hotel, Liverpool

The 2024 BARS conference in Liverpool was a great success, attended by approximately 200 delegates who enjoyed a range of high quality presentations from our wonderful speakers, many of which have been kind enough to allow us to reproduce their presentations here in PDF format, so to download one of the 2024 conference presentations, please click on the relevant link below.  

Administration Management Meeting

• Kim Lovell (National Grading Lead) & Katherine Jordan (Senior Programme Manager) - Opportunities, Challenges & Takeaways

Thursday Programme

• Professor David Wong (Honoary Professor, University of Liverpool) - How can we trust the answers AI systems give us and our patients?
• Rosamond Gilden (Regional Co-ordinator DR-NET South Pacific Region) - DR-NET Pacific Programme- Challenges and Overview of Screening and Treatment Services in the Islands
• Dr Indu Kumar (Clinical Lead Central Mersey Diabetic Eye Screening Programme) - Are two images enough for screening?
• Professor Tunde Peto (Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology, Queen's University Belfast) - Diabetes and the eye: Patient centred diabetic eye care 

We also Congratulate Tunde on her BARS lifetime member award.

• Natasha Marsland (Senior Clinical Advisor, Diabetes UK) - Type 2 Diabetes remission - Where are we?
• Dr Philip Burgess (Clinical Senior Lecturer, University of Liverpool & Honoary Consultant Ophthalmologist St Paul's eye unit) with Jonathan Rothwell (Patient) - Early phase clinical trials in diabetic retinopathy
• Sense Medical Ltd.
• Optomize - Celebrating the Silver Anniversary (NEC Software Solutions)
• Mainline Instruments
• Laura Pigula (Clinical Affairs Specialist, Topcon Ltd) - Tools & Technology - How Topcon systems can support diabetic eye screening

Friday Programme 

• Samantha Mann (BARS President) - Starting hybrid closed loop systems: Will the drops in HbA1c be important?

Samantha Mann has also Kindly shared her Matrix for HCL's used by the South East London DESP: Click here

• Kim Lovell (National Grading Lead) & Katherine Jordan (Senior Programme Manager) - Update on National Programme
• Stephen Pearson (Ophthalmic Science Practitioner, Royal Liverpool University Hospital) - Revolutionising our dynamic world: Harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence
• BARS AGM
• Dr Trystan Macdonald (Clinical Research Fellow/ Ophthalmology Speciality Trainee, University of Birmingham) - Diabetic eye screening using machine learning enabled automated retinal imaging analysis software - A target product profile for England (DART)
• Helen Seddon (Medical Photographer, Mersey & West Lancs Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust) - Photos of diabetic problems within the human body
• Josh Cook (Youth Worker- Together Type 1) - Eye care experiences in young people with diabetes

Keynote Speaker

• Professor Partha Kar (Consultant Endocrinologist/ Diabetes & National Speciality Advisor in Diabetes NHS England) - To boldly go where no one has gone before!

The 2024 BARS/Topcon Healthcare Poster Competition

The winning posters of the 2024 BARS/Topcon (GB) Medical Ltd Poster Competition were announced at this year's conference in Liverpool with the winners each receiving Amazon vouchers. The standard and content exceeded expectations and with a total of 26 entries, it was difficult to pick out the individual winners. The three posters can be viewed below by clicking the relevant title.

1st) Ian Brennan, Stephen Kelly, Joanne Harmon, Matthew Phillips, Andrew Combes, Shane Mc Mahon, Rob Acheson, David Keegan, Helen Kavanagh, Lousie O'Toole,

EVALUATING THE OCT PATHWAY IN THE IRISH DIABETIC EYE SCREENING PROGRAMME

2nd) Benedict Symon, Carrie Hinton, Gillian Slingerland, Amy Austin, Sallyann Matthews, Carmel Japel, Roger Brint

THE POSITIVE IMPACT OF THE HOSPITAL EYE SERVICE RECALL INITIATIVE ON PATIENT CARE

3rd) Marc Lewis, Anthony Bostock

R3A REFERRAL COHORT ANALYSIS IN OUR MOST DEPRIVED AREA: SWINDON

Once again we would like to thank all of our participants for their hard work and to our sponsors Topcon Healthcare for their continued support.

The 2024 BARS/Mainline Instruments Photography Competition 

The winners and runners-up of the 2024 BARS/Mainline Instruments Photography Competition were announced at this year's conference in Liverpool. With a total of 11 entries in the clinical category, the winner was decided as Susan Whalley from the Central Mersey DESP team and the runner-up was Sarah Lake from Jersey DESP.

The artistic category had a total of 7 entries and was won by Jade Jones from Central Mersey DESP and the runner-up was Diliana Nikolova from South West London DESP.

The winners received £100 Amazon vouchers for each category and the runners-up received £50 Amazon vouchers for each category and they all received a certificate.

Below are the winners from each category from 2024, Once again we would like to thank Mainline Instruments Ltd for their sponsorship of the BARS photo competition.

Click on the image to open a larger version.

                                    Photo by Susan Whalley (Central Mersey)                                                     Photo by Jade Jones (Central Mersey)

We are also delighted to announce the winner of the fabulous prize draw held by Zeiss at this year's conference. Delegates were tasked with capturing a Macular OCT using the Cirrus HD - OCT to be in with a chance of winning a pair of Zeiss Binoculars. The winner of this was announced as Joanne Harmon

Congratulations!