Valencia. April 2026. 1500-plus delegates, clinicians, researchers, and educators from across the globe, all in one place for three days, for one reason: to advance how we think about vascular access.

The 9th World Congress on Vascular Access — WoCoVA 2026 — is the conference the vascular access world points to. The kind of event where you walk into the main auditorium and realise quite how many people across how many countries are working on the same problems you're working on every day. The evidence base that shapes how venepuncture, cannulation and vascular access devices are taught, implemented, and standardised. VeinTrain was there.

Why WoCoVA Matters for Training

Congresses like this are where the science hardens into practice. The data presented here — on infection prevention, patient anxiety, device management, education methodology, insertion technique — filters through into guidelines, into Trust policies, into the questions your learners will be asking in three years' time. If you're in the business of training people to do this well, you need to be in this conversation.

What struck us this year wasn't that the fundamentals had changed. The core principles of venepuncture and cannulation training — sound technique, patient-centred practice, evidence-based competency — remain exactly what they were. What's changed is the data behind them. Richer, more colourful, more powerful. The case for doing things properly has never been easier to make.

VeinTrain at WoCoVA 2026

Over three days we attended sessions on patient anxiety and VR sedation, infection prevention and passive disinfection, power injectability and device-specific training, and the future of vascular access education. We'll be sharing what we heard and what it means for how we train — for individual learners, for clinical teams, and for organisations building consistent competency across sites.

This is the first in a series of posts from WoCoVA 2026. Follow along.

VeinTrain delivers venepuncture and cannulation training for NHS trusts, independent clinicians and healthcare organisations across the UK. Explore VeinTrain learning options.