Child Health Technology Conference 2025 Highlights
Monday 30 June 2025
The 4th Child Health Technology Conference took place online this year on 11th-12th June.
Along with the last three conferences, CHT2025 brought together a global network of clinicians, academics, industry partners, charities, governance experts, and importantly, young people and families, to share the latest research and innovation in child health technology.
This year’s programme included inspiring keynotes from leading experts, informative and interactive seminars that showcase cutting-edge research, spotlight talks, live Q&A sessions and more. Take a look at the conference highlights below.
Day One
Morning Session
Professor Paul Dimitri, CHT Conference Founder and Director of the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Paediatrics and Child Health, opened the conference and chaired the morning session.
- Dr Marcus Baw and Dr Simon Chapman started the day off with an engaging shared breakfast seminar session about the work going on at the RCPCH, followed by a live Q&A session.
- Dr Tamsin Holland Brown presented the first keynote talk of the conference and shared some really useful insight into the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme.
- Dr Rebecca Pope and Professor Payam Barnaghi presented a fantastic shared seminar about artificial intelligence in paediatric healthcare, followed by a live Q&A.
- Dr Steve Jones then joined us for a concise and interesting spotlight talk about the development of a psychometric outcomes platform.
- After a short break, we were delighted to welcome Prof Michelle Heys for a seminar and live Q&A about how digital innovation can transform global child health.
- Dr Louise Allen then delivered another great seminar that explored challenges around healthtech implementation followed by a live Q&A with our audience.
Afternoon Session
For the afternoon session of Day One, we were delighted that Professor Meena Balasubramanian, Professor of Medical Genetics and Genomic Medicine, joined us to welcome everyone back after lunch and chair the conference for rest of the day.
- We started the second half of the day with our Early Career Researcher (ECR) Seminar: Dr Alice Bullas, Dr Felicity Fitzgerald and Dr Sheena Visram each delivered an inspiring presentation about their career journeys, ongoing work, and insight for other aspiring researchers. Meena then chaired an exciting Q&A session with our three ECR speakers.
- Next we listened to an engaging keynote talk from Professor Amaka Offiah and Dr Xinhan Li about how to assess bone strength in children using digital twins.
- The first Innovator’s Journey seminar of the conference invited Dr Meritxell Teixido and Saran Muthiah to share their unique journeys in health tech development and answer audience questions in a live Q&A.
- The final session of the day was a much anticipated one… We were delighted to host a Specialist Session about the National Centre for Child Health Technology and the recent KidsUp Accelerator Programme. Jude Stone introduced the delegates to the amazing new centre that is currently being built in Sheffield (and was featured in a window view of the conference set design all day). Thank you to the other brilliant speakers that discussed their involvement in the accelerator programme and its Young Person Advisory Panel: Dr Gemma Wheeler, Ari Billig, Maddie Julian, Roisin Molloy, Philippa Hedley-Takhar and Dr Greg Burch.
Day Two
Morning Session
Dauda Bappa, Research Theme Manager at Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre, opened Day Two of the conference and chaired the morning session.
- Ania Zylbersztejn, Joachim Tan and Rachel Sippy started the day with a breakfast seminar about how linking data using national databases can transform child health in the ECHILD and CADRE research projects. This was followed by an engaging Q&A with the three speakers.
- The next session of the day introduced our delegates to the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Paediatrics and Child Health – each of our excellent theme leads provided some insight into what the HRC does and we were joined at the end by Simone Croft at the NIHR HRC Network to illustrate the bigger picture of how all the HRCs work together.
- Following this, the NIHR HRC PCH’s very own PPIE Executive Lead, Jenny Preston, delivered a marvellous talk about the importance of including children and young people in innovation. The delegates especially enjoyed the short video that featured some mini interviews with some of the amazing young people at Liverpool Speke Venny Science Club!
- Dr Fiona Sotir then joined us to present a really interesting spotlight talk about children’s oral health and technology.
- After a short break, Chris Evans and Rachael Grimaldi joined us for the “Innovator’s Journey” seminar where they each shared their experiences as both innovators and clinicians, followed by an engaging live Q&A.
- The final session of the morning was a great spotlight talk from Lærke Winther about digital play interventions for rehabilitation and promoting physical activity in CYP.
Afternoon Session
Professor Paul Dimitri joined us once again to chair the afternoon session and close another fantastic conference.
- The first session after lunch involved the return of a conference favourite: a Live Panel Discussion on child health innovation. Chaired by David Cole, MBA, three speakers were invited to join us to explore how organisations navigate health technology development and overcome hurdles to adoption in the NHS. Thank you to our invited panellists: Arnau Valls Esteve, Sam Bacon – The Marketing Guy and Iain Hennessey.
- Next, we were delighted to have Seray Ibrahim deliver a brilliant spotlight talk about designing digital tools for parenting and in-the-moment support.
- Paul Fletcher then joined the conference and shared a marvellous seminar about the power of video games in representing mental illness followed by a live Q&A.
- After a short break, Sarah Bolton and Janet Bouttell from the Centre for Healthcare Equipment and Technology Adoption came together for a shared seminar and delved into 1) what the NHS wants from medical device manufacturers, and 2) health economics in paediatric medtech development, followed by an incredibly informative live Q&A.
- The closing session of CHT2025 was a brilliant keynote presentation from Elizabeth Johnson about international pathways for co-designed innovations for young people – a great way to end the conference!
Throughout both days of the conference we were also pleased to share 16 terrific abstract presentations after receiving a record number of submissions. The delegates enjoyed the wide range of topics covered in these sessions. Congratulations to Ursula Ankeny for being awarded the CHT2025 Early Career Researcher Award for Best Abstract Presentation as well.
Finally we’d like to say an enormous thank you to the organisations that made this year’s conference possible. To the organisations that sponsored CHT2025, Merck Healthcare, NIHR Research Delivery Network, NIHR HealthTech Research Centre Network, and Medipex, we couldn’t have done this without you. Finally, thank you so much to Event Management Direct, Technative, and Marketing Sheffield for making CHT2025 possible and for your continued support and expertise.
For more information about the Child Health Technology Conference, please visit the CHT website using the link below.