Specialist Society
Session Title: When Innovation Meets Administration: The Challenges of Integrating Robot Systems into the NHS
Session Description:
Join us for the Computer Aided Orthopaedic Surgery Session, featuring experts in the field. Robot-assisted surgery is increasingly setting new standards for precision and personalization in orthopaedic treatment. But the integration of such sophisticated systems within NHS settings remains a significant challenge to date. Exorbitant capital costs, Byzantine procurement processes, workforce readiness, and uncertainty regarding long-term value are all still hindering adoption — not through any lack of clinical promise, but due to administrative and structural barriers. This CAOS UK Revalidation Session will tackle these contradictions head-on: between leading-edge innovation and routine hospital life.
The conference opens with an overview of the latest NICE Health Tech guidleines and implementation of Robotics into the NHS as standard of care followed by panel discussions from surgeons who have themselves experienced the process of introducing robotic-assisted surgery in their own NHS departments. Each will reflect over the implementation process — from optimism at the outset to organizational resistance — and on the practical implications in terms of surgical workflow, team adaptation, and clinical provision. Their experience gives us useful insight into both the promise and the resistance of the roll-out of robotic technologies into real-world orthopaedic practice.
A follow-up panel discussion will look at the broad implications for hospital networks, surgical education, clinical governance, and budgeting. Key topics will be how to measure the return on investment, what credentialing and training processes are required for safe expansion, and how robotic systems can be incorporated into hospital practice without disrupting existing care pathways. Time will be allowed for questions, issues, and exchange of views from public and private practitioners.
The revalidation session will conclude with a look to the future discussion: "Beyond the Hardware — and Its Cost: What's Next for CAOS in the NHS? " This final presentation will broaden the scope from robot adoption to the future of computer-aided surgery more generally — examining the role of artificial intelligence, data-driven decision support, augmented technologies, and the future role of the surgeon in an ever-more digital operating theatre.
It will ask not only what we are adopting, but what we are building toward.
This session is aimed at educating and provoking by bringing together surgeons, trainees, hospital managers, and industry representatives for an open, evidence-led debate on the realities and potential of surgical innovation within the NHS. If you're already using robotic technology or looking to start down the path, this is a timely chance to consider what's going well, what's not, and what comes next.
Mr Dinesh Nathwani is a Consultant Knee Surgeon & Hon Senior Clinical Lecturer of Orthopaedics at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and the Cleveland Clinic London where he is also the Lead for Orthopaedic Robotics. He has over 28 years of Orthopaedic Surgical experience. His current speciality interest is Adult Knee Reconstructive Surgery. He has an expertise in technology assisted knee surgery and has used Computers and Robotics for all his Partial and Total knee replacements since being appointed as a substantive Knee Consultant at Imperial College Healthcare in 2004. This was following a fellowship year in Australia where he learnt techniques in Computer Navigation, ACL and other complex ligament reconstruction together with arthroscopic meniscus repair and resection. Currently, he is leading trials of Robotically assisted knee replacements at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Cleveland Clinic, London.
Mr Nathwani is the current President of CAOS UK (Computer Assisted Orthopaedic Surgery UK) and is an Orthopaedic research advisor for the Hamlyn Centre of Robotics at Imperial College. He is one of the Key European and Global Opinion Leaders in Robotic Knee Surgery acting as a senior advisor in development of the software and hardware platforms currently in use globally. He reviews for several Orthopaedic Journals including British Bone & Joint Journal, Nature, The Knee and Injury.
Mr. Frédéric Picard, MD, MSc, FRCS a.k.a Fred Picard has been Orthopaedic Consultant at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Glasgow since July 2005 and served as its Director of Orthopaedic Research for 10 years. He worked in Orthopaedic units in Grenoble, Lyon, Paris in France and Chicago, Pittsburgh in the United States of America and has been involved in Computer Assisted Orthopaedic Surgery (CAOS) since its inceptions. He is member of several national and international orthopaedic societies and is past president of the CAOS UK society. He has more than 180 peer reviewed publications, more than ten book chapters, was editor of two books on Computer Assisted Technology and registered six patents.
The basic research of Dr. Picard at the University of Grenoble in the nineties have been the fundamentals for the technical constructions of the first routine CT-free knee navigation system for Total Knee Arthroplasty. On January 21, 1997, he performed the first ever knee replacement in the world with this technology. He has been recognized as a “Lead User Developer of Radical Innovation in the Field of Medical Equipment Technology”. He is Professor Associate at the biomedical engineering department of Strathclyde University of Glasgow. Dr. Picard received multiple awards including the Muller award, the highest recognition in Computer Assisted Surgery, in 2009 in Boston, MA (USA) and the NHS 70 heroes award in Scotland.
Mr Sharma is a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital. He qualified with a Distinction in Clinical Practice from St. Georges Hospital Medical School, London in 2007 and undertook his Basic Surgical Training in London and Oxford. He went on to complete his higher surgical training in the West Midlands on the Birmingham rotation and obtained his FRCS (Trauma and Orthopaedics) in 2016. Mr Sharma completed his highly competitive advanced knee fellowships from both the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford and Nottingham University Hospitals.
Mr Sharma has a specialist interest in all aspects of knee surgery, including partial knee replacements, total knee replacements and failed knee replacements. He strives to use the latest technologies and advancements in orthopaedics to personalise the best surgical outcome for his patients and where possible uses robotic surgery. His robotic experience entails using the Robotic Surgical Assistant (ROSA®) by Zimmer Biomet and his experience with other robotics systems is broadening.
He is the chair of the Modern Interventions Panel at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital and is the Surgical Lead for same day discharge following knee replacement surgery at his Trust. Mr. Sharma has been awarded three academic prizes and has a strong research background in both clinical and basic sciences. He has co-authored a number of book chapters and enjoys lecturing regularly for undergraduates.
