Reflections from the South West Nuclear Medicine Meeting 2026

I recently had the pleasure of attending the South West Nuclear Medicine Meeting 2026 in Exeter alongside colleagues from Southampton. Meetings like this are an important reminder of the value of coming together as professionals from across the region to exchange ideas, share good practice, and think collectively about how we develop nuclear medicine services for the benefit of patients.

It was fantastic to see colleagues from Southampton presenting work that reflects the breadth of innovation happening across our teams. Jay Patel presented a poster on SPECT quantification, while Gemma Lewis shared work on personalised advice for patients with incontinence enabling them to receive radionuclide therapy. Both contributions highlighted how technical development and patient-centred thinking go hand-in-hand in improving nuclear medicine practice.

It was also a pleasure to hear Gemma Greenfinch from Royal Devon present work on cardiac MIBG imaging in dementia, offering useful guidance on how this approach could be optimally implemented in the NHS, accelerating diagnosis whilst reducing scan time and cost.

Another highlight was seeing colleagues Kat Dixon and Ercan Turan from University Hospitals Dorset present work from our joint collaboration. This project was supported through the WHP-funded small grants scheme, which covered the costs of an imaging phantom – a test object required for scanner calibration. Working together we were able to setup and harmonise protocols across University Hospitals Dorset and University Hospital Southampton so that patients can have the same quantitative scans at either site. This project shows how working together can help share innovation, support harmonisation of practice, and accelerate uptake of new approaches across the region.

I was delighted to contribute a keynote lecture reflecting on my own clinical academic journey through the NIHR pathway. My talk focused on the opportunities and challenges of building a clinical academic career, offering practical guidance to colleagues interested in fellowships and academic development.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Katharine Thompson’s talk, The First Thyroid Radionuclide Therapy Patient? A Mystery in Time and Music. It offered a beautiful journey back through the history of radionuclide therapy, combining meticulous scientific research with art in a way that was both engaging and memorable.

What stood out most across the meeting was the shared commitment to harmonising practice and developing services jointly. Beyond the individual presentations, the meeting reinforced the strength of the regional nuclear medicine network across the south west, with colleagues generously sharing experience, reconnecting with old friends, forming new links, and exploring future collaborations.

Meetings like this matter because they help spread knowledge, support the deployment of innovative methods, and ultimately improve services. My thanks to the organisers for delivering such a valuable event. It was particularly rewarding to see a Wessex Health Partners-funded collaboration represented in the programme, showing how regional partnerships can generate and share innovation for patient benefit.