What does the future hold for healthcare scientists?

Healthcare scientists apply science and technology to clinical care. Yet health care depends increasingly on complex and sophisticated technology, for both diagnosis and treatment. The speed and extent of scientific research is accelerating; every day brings discoveries of new and exciting materials, methods and ideas which can be applied to improve existing techniques and open up new fields. Much is changing: how do healthcare scientists respond? This article briefly reviews the profile and changing role of healthcare scientists in the NHS. It considers how healthcare scientists might respond to changes in the NHS, both individually and collectively. It contains an update of material first presented to the IMI Annual Conference at York in 2005.