Professor Iain Moppett awarded the Webb Johnson Oration

We are delighted to announce that Professor Iain Moppett has been awarded the joint RCoA/RCSEng Webb Johnson Oration, which he will deliver later this year.

The Webb Johnson oration

Professor Iain Moppett has been nominated for Enhancing perioperative care of older people considering or having surgery.  He has driven awareness, policy, and practice in perioperative care attuned to the needs of older people contemplating or undergoing surgery at the national and international levels; approximately 20% of people aged 75 years and older have surgery annually. 

His focus is on older people living with frailty, cognitive impairment and having emergency surgery.  He developed the most widely validated tool for predicting outcomes after hip fracture, now used across the UK, Europe, South America, Australia and Asia to support shared decision-making, quality improvement and research. He has led and co-authored national and international guidance on perioperative care for hip fracture (affecting around 70,000 people annually in the UK and 15 million globally), cognitive impairment and chronic subdural haematoma (around 15,000 people annually in the UK), working with major organisations and contributing urgent national guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He led the International Fragility Fracture Network’s initiative to improve global practice in non-operative care, provides strategic oversight for the National Emergency Laparotomy Network (30,000 patients annually), and serves as anaesthesia representative for the National Hip Fracture Database, both associated with sustained reductions in postoperative mortality and improvements in patient-centred care. 

An internationally recognised clinical researcher in hip fracture perioperative care, he leads studies on delirium prevention (affecting one in three patients), anaemia treatment and inclusion of older people with cognitive impairment in research, addressing longstanding inequities. He has held senior leadership roles at the Royal College of Anaesthetists’ Centre for Research & Improvement (deputy director 2016–2022, director 2022–2025, chair 2025–), overseeing landmark UK-wide studies including NAP7, CASAP, ACC-TRACK and SSNAP-1, and has played a leading role in perioperative patient safety, including seminal work on surgical never events and near misses and chairing the National Safety Standards for Invasive Procedures group, whose evidence-based standards are now embedded across all NHS-funded providers.

This lectureship is awarded annually by the Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) and Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCSEng) and alternates between a surgeon and an anaesthetist.  

You can find further details about the award here.