Winners announced Advancing Healthcare Awards Cymru 2026
Held on Thursday 15 October at the Cardiff Marriott, the ceremony celebrated outstanding contributions and innovations in healthcare.
All the winners from the Advancing Healthcare Awards Cymru 2026
This year, we are thrilled to celebrate IBMS member Melanie Prince, Point of Care Testing Co-ordinator at Powys Teaching Health Board, who won the Award for developing the AHP and Healthcare Science Professions Workforce for her project, Introducing Powys to POCT: Transforming Point of Care Testing in Powys.
Health Education and Improvement Wales sponsored the award, and the judging panel highlighted how Melanie set out to establish POCT as a strategic diagnostic service supporting community diagnostics, clinical transformation and equitable access to care across Powys.
Since appointing its first biomedical scientist in 2024, the service has grown and now supports 793 operators, 345 devices and 91 clinical locations, creating sustainable foundations for community diagnostics across rural Wales.
Congratulations to Melanie and her team.
Two other IBMS members were also finalists:
- Michael Cahillane, Senior Research Scientist, Welsh Blood Service and the collaborative research team for his project, Human Platelet Lysate, in the Award for new ways of working category.
- Alan Deacon, National Pathology Programme Lead, NHS Wales Performance and Improvement, for his project Limited scope reporting Biomedical Scientist (bowel screening) training pilot in the Award for developing the AHP and healthcare science professions workforce category.
The Award for Excellence in Diagnostics, sponsored by the Institute of Biomedical Science, was won by Daniel Gill, Senior Biomedical Scientist, Wales Specialist Virology Centre and the team at Public Health Wales for Slaying the gap: Universal testing for Hepatitis D in Wales.
The Advancing Healthcare Awards Cymru continue to foster partnership working across professional boundaries, celebrating those who support and enhance health services alongside Allied health professionals and healthcare scientists.
Congratulations to all the 2026 winners and finalists for their remarkable achievements and contributions to healthcare.
You can find the full list of winners here.