The annual European Respiratory Society (ERS) International Congress will take place on 7-9 September 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year the Congress will take place in a virtual format, and it is expected to be the biggest ever ERS Congress. Find out everything you need to know about the Congress programme and what is available before the start of the Congress.
You can access the ERS Congress platform on the ERS Congress website: www.erscongress.org
The ERS Congress platform is now live and is free to access for patient organistion and patient advisory group (PAG) representatives with a MyERS account. A range of Pre-Congress material including abstracts, e-posters and pre-recorded sessions is available to view. If you are a patient representative and would like to access the platform, please contact us.
ELF will host a patient organisation networking day, which will be free to attend for members of the ELF patient organisation network. It will take place online on Saturday 5 September at 10:30-15:30 CEST. The theme for the day will be psychosocial wellbeing, including how this has been impacted upon during the COVID-19 pandemic. There will be a range of speakers, e-poster presentations and activities to take part in.
We have developed a special platform for the day, where you will be able to enter the sessions, learn about the speakers, view the e-posters and listen to the poster presentations, access resources from a range of patient organisations and see who else is attending. Everyone registered for the day will receive the link and information about how to access the platform for the day.
You can register to attend by completing the following survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/ELFDayVirtual2020
ERS will be hosting a live COVID-19 programme on Sunday 6 September. A day’s worth of live sessions dedicated to COVID-19 will be available to access for free on the ERS Congress platform.
As with the Pre-Congress material, patient organistion and PAG representatives with a MyERS account are able to access the content.
The main ERS Congress programme will take place from Monday 7 September until Wednesday 9 September. It will consist of live expert sessions covering a range of topics related to respiratory health and medicine.
This year there will be six patients taking part in Congress sessions: two Expert View sessions that are part of the pre-Congress material, and five symposia. During the symposia, a video will be shown of each patient talking about different aspects of living with their lung condition. The patient will then join the other presenters at the end of each symposium to answer questions put to them by delegates.
Sessions that include patient input are highlighted in the patient programme.
We have developed a patient programme. This highlights all the most relevant parts of the Congress for patients as chosen by our patient advisory groups (PAGs). We have written a brief summary of each session and included the link to the main platform.
Patient expert sessions are a selection of sessions chosen by the PAGs as being the most important to patients. We will take the session recordings and cut them down to the most relevant parts; for some of these, we will work with a respiratory professional to develop a summary of the session. We have also arranged for representatives from the PAGs to attend each session. They will consult with their groups and develop a series of questions about the session which will then be put to the experts after Congress.
The end result will be tailored sessions that answer the most asked questions by patients about the topic presented.
As no one will be travelling for this year’s ERS International Congress, we have set the challenge for individuals to #TakeTheActiveOption and count up the kilometres they walk, run, swim or cycle throughout the month of September. You can choose the distance you would have travelled to Congress this year or from previous years or you can choose some of our chosen distances based on what ERS/ELF leadership have travelled for previous Congresses from their hometowns. You can choose to take part individually or as part of a team.
Participants will be collecting sponsors for their challenge, so if you prefer, you can get involved by sponsoring an individual or team. All donations will go to the Healthy Lungs for Life campaign to raise awareness and spread the important messages of the campaign across the globe.
