Previous National Pathology Week

National Pathology Week 2025

NPW 2025 ran from 3–9 November. The theme for 2025 was 'Pathology Solutions'. Some of the highlights are below.

RCPath parliamentary event

The RCPath delivered a high-profile event, 'Pathology Solutions' at the House of Commons on 4 November. Dr Simon Opher MP, kindly sponsored this important event. You can find out about the highlights from this event in our news post.

Thank you to our Industry sponsors for this event: Novo Nordisk, Roche Diagnostics and Illumina.
Novo Nordisk, Roche, and Illumina provided sponsorship to the Royal College of Pathologists to support the cost of this meeting. These sponsoring companies had no influence over the meeting agenda or arrangements.

International Pathology Day (IPD)

The RCPath’s IPD virtual conference on 5 November celebrated the vital contributions of pathology professionals around the world. This year’s theme was ‘The global pathology workforce’. You can find out more in the blog post about this event.

Thank you to Diagnexia and the British Society of Haematology for sponsoring this event.

Pathology Alliance online event for students

The College worked in partnership with the Pathology Alliance to deliver an engaging online event called ‘Pathology Solutions: how tests help patients’ on 5 November. The event was chaired by Dr Suzy Lishman CBE and 20 speakers working in a variety of pathology specialties presented short, snappy talks on different pathology tests. You can watch the videos we have created of each talk here.

National Pathology Week 2024

National Pathology Week (NPW) 2024 ran from 4 to 10 November.

Our theme for 2024 was 'Pathology is vital'.

College-led activities included:

4 November – our online event titled 'Pathology myths and misconceptions' – a panel of fascinating speakers for a special webinar explored, and dispelled, some of the most common myths about pathology.
6 November – our annual virtual conference for International Pathology Day – this year the topic was 'The rise of global antimicrobial resistance.'
8 November – lunctime webinar titled 'From bench to bedside'. This was a RCPath collaboration with Roche Diagnostics UK. This free online event explored how greater collaboration between industry and academia can help accelerate frontline use of new diagnostic technologies. Watch the recording of this event here.

Pathology Alliance

We delivered NPW in collaboration with other members of the Pathology Alliance – the organisations who are part of the Alliance are listed below.

National Pathology Week 2023

NPW 2023 ran from 19 to 25 June.

Our theme for 2023 was 'Pathologists and patients'.

We highlighted the essential work pathologists and clinical scientists do to help patients and supported members and their teams to do the same around the UK.

College-led activities included:

our NPW Twitter competition that challenged members and their teams to tweet a photo or video that summed up our theme
19 June – RCPath Book Club featuring 'Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything'
21 June – Virtual Pathology Pub Quiz for undergraduates
22 June – Art of Pathology Exhibition at the Annual Dinner drinks reception
23 June – Virtual Veterinary Pathology Pub Quiz for undergraduates (on Instagram)
24 June – Discovering Cells art-science workshop with Dr Lizzie Burns and histopathologist Dr Stephanie Edwards.

National Pathology Week 2022

NPW 2022 ran from 20 to 26 June.

Our theme was 'Pathology: past, present and future'.

We moved the celebrations from November to June as part of the College's Diamond Jubilee.

College-led activities included:

20 June – 'Pathology: past, present and future' panel discussion
21 June – the College's 60th birthday and Foundation lecture by Professor Jonathan Van-Tam
22 June – Virtual Pub Quiz for medical and biomedical undergraduates
23 June – RCPath Book Club featuring Stuck by Professor Heidi J Larson
24 June – Virtual Pub Quiz for veterinary undergraduates
25 June – family pathology-inspired origami workshop with Dr Lizzie Burns.