Flat Friends and UK Interdisciplinary Breast Cancer Conference (UKIBCS)

ICC Birmingham– 19-20 Jan 2026

For the first time this year Flat friends was able to have an exhibitor’s stand at the annual UKIBCS conference, along with a few other charities. These conferences are always a great opportunity to raise our profile with Breast Surgeons and Breast Care Nurses (BCN).

Odile Wittemans and Ona Riamah, both trustees, manned the stand. Between 800 to 900 delegates attended the 2 days with a full programme of updates and invited speakers, with sessions ranging from clinical topics, latest research on breast cancer etc to more lifestyle related topics for example also. The exhibition hall was used to show case 76 posters summarising research and audits or work in progress. One of the posters was from the ABC (Accepting your Body after Cancer) study led by Helena Lewis-Smith. Many of our Flat Friends are familiar with and contributed to this study in the past. Pharmaceutical companies were also in the exhibition hall as well as the charity stands.

In addition to Flat Friends, several other charities and organisations had a stand in the exhibition all, including Breast Cancer Now, Future Dreams, Make 2nds Count, Menopause and Cancer, ABS. This provided us with a great opportunity to re-connect with charities we have collaborated with in the past. We discussed with ABS how they can continue to support charities like ours, and BCN extended an invite to participate to their conference in May! They also would love to involve us more in their regional sessions, and of course we would be delighted to take them up on this. The Fruit Fly Collective (supporting parents who have had a cancer diagnosis) gave us some very useful pointers to potential grants we could apply for – something we plan to do in the coming weeks.

Our stand was popular over the 2 days, we met many surgeons, oncologists, radiologists, nurses etc – many of which had already heard of us, which was great to hear! We received great feedback on our booklets, many of the attendees mentioned how much they love it and how useful it has been when talking to their patients. They especially loved the photos of mastectomy scars shown in the booklet. One breast surgery registrar actually mentioned she is working on a photo database on mastectomy pictures and would love to collaborate with us. Our hot pink pens were very popular as promotional items, as were our post-its – and with our email and website mentioned on there, we expect many more breast cancer units to now contact us and request our booklets.

Our new patron and advisor Professor Shelley Potter was present at the conference with several members of her team. They were all very keen to come and talk to us, and are extremely happy with the level of participation to the FLAME study from Flat Friends. The FLAME study, led by Professor Shelley Potter, aims to improve access and outcomes for women seeking flat symmetry after a single mastectomy for breast cancer. The study is part of a broader effort to build the evidence base for oncoplastic and reconstructive breast surgery. Professor Potter’s research and leadership in the FLAME study are significant contributions to the field of breast cancer treatment, focusing on optimizing outcomes for patients while reducing treatment-associated morbidity. We recently put a request out for patients’ participation – and our members definitely answered that call – Shelley mentioned over 150 have signed up and will be interviewed in the coming months! Flat Friends will be providing funding for upcoming consensus meetings which form a key part of the research.  

We also had several surgeons stop by our stand and sharing some of their patient stories and asking for our advice on how to approach certain situations regarding flat surgery. It is great to see how we have become trusted advisors for these types of questions!

It was an excellent two days and hopefully one that will bring dividends as our profile continues to be raised with Breast Care Units and the message that not everyone needs/wants/can have reconstruction continuing to resonate.