Open to conference delegates.  Pre-booking required. Conference delegates will be sent the link to book in September.

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

yes

Suzanne is a clinical planner and practising clinician who has dedicated her career to the pursuit of clinical excellence. She works with clients across the globe to help them develop optimum clinical models as the foundation and underpinning of the built environment – wrapping design around excellence in flow.
She has taken innumerable organisations through capital project development from inception to delivery, demonstrating how estates can be an enabler to deliver clinical aspirations and create inspirational buildings that wrap around excellence in service delivery.
An advocate of the digital agenda she works with health systems internationally developing digital hospitals that meet the demands of today and are fit to deliver tomorrow’s technology.

Workshop

Looking Back to Accelerate Forward: Tackling Last Year’s Problems to Pave the Way for Future Development

With the dearth of funding, space and resources what can we do to develop our crumbling estate and facilitate delivery of the clinical model? How can we look back to accelerate forward, and tackle last year’s problems to pave the way for future development?

In this workshop we will reflect on how critical it Is to have a strategic approach to estates management and consider:

1.The impact of the NHS plan for estates management

a. What’s new

b. What are the take-aways

c. What are the key messages for estates management

2.The essence of excellence: challenging the culture to rethink NHS estates

a. Backlog maintenance and its importance for future capital development.

b. Sustainability and its challenges for current estate

c. Digitisation for the future straddling the chasm between what is and what should be

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

yes

Achieving Cost and Energy Savings through RFID Control of Laundry and Distribution Processes

Estates & Facilities Services

1. RFID tracking of laundry is cost effective and easy to implement

2. Tracking linen movements allows excess inventory and usage losses to be quickly identified

3. Linen usage can only be controlled by physically restricting access to the required quantities and automatically scanning on withdrawal – hand scanning is unreliable and ineffective

4. Tracking and controlling inventory movements leads to a significant reduction of overall inventory, through eliminating losses, tracking linen life cycles and optimising purchase quantities.

5. Energy costs are most easily and cheaply realised by reducing laundry activity through handling smaller inventories, allowing fast ROI.

Jon Walter – technical account manager, Unitech Services Group Ltd, responsible for ACG Pulse suite of linen tracking solutions.
To be confirmed – representative of Kantonspital Winterthur, the subject of the presentation

Kantonspital Winterthur is a general hospital near Zurich with 500 beds, and 250,000 patients/year. It had a personal delivery system for workwear to each of its 2600 employees, running at capacity because of space shortages and safety requirements, and this prevented further workforce increases. The existing system was replaced with an automated, unmanned, totally secure system where employees collected their own workwear. 

Card keys identified the users while RFID tagging of individual workwear items allowed withdrawals and returns to be controlled via dedicated software, and their location to be known at any time. Theft or over-consumption was physically prevented by automatic portals which prevented egress from the stores. Individual accountability motivated employees to return soiled workwear on time and in full, and minimised damage and abuse – return bins could be located close to the point of use. Employees took less time to collect a week's workwear rather than individual daily collections.

Dedicated software provides automatic signals to laundries to wash a specific number of items triggered by stock levels going below a minimum level of any type of garment. Thus the laundry washes what is required, in the optimum quantity, at the right time. This reduces clothing inventory by 50%, and washing activity and thus energy usage and carbon footprint are reduced by 20%.

The software also provides detailed analysis of stock levels, usage patterns, and service life of items, supporting optimised sourcing of quantity and quality of workwear Because workwear is not be assigned to individual users, this allows more flexible usage patterns and easy restocking by size and type.

Savings:

• 50% inventory reduction
• 20% energy reduction
• faster shift changes
• unmanned stores
• lower restocking manning requirements
• better sourcing decisions

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

Hospital 2.0 and NHS Staff Wellbeing – Caring for Those Who Care For Our Patients 

Strategic Health & Social Care Planning

yes

Global Collaboration for Local Solutions:  The integration of international practices into local hospital environments shows the power of learning from global examples while tailoring solutions to meet local challenges and needs.  This ensures that the most innovative and effective ideas are brought into play.  

Holistic Wellbeing Drives Performance:  A focus on staff physical and mental wellbeing is not only a moral imperative but a strategic one.  When staff are well-rested and supported, their ability to deliver safe, high-quality care improves, leading to better patient outcomes and a more efficient healthcare system overall. 

Collaboration is Key: The development of these standards emphasised the importance of engaging front-line staff in the design process. Direct feedback through Listening Expeditions and workshops highlighted the real-world needs of healthcare workers, ensuring that the final spaces met their practical and emotional needs.

Evidence-Based Design:  Relying on a combination of global best practices and academic studies provided a solid foundation for the standards.  The integration of diverse, evidence-backed approaches shows that thoughtful, data-driven planning can drive transformative change in healthcare environments.

Flexible, Adaptable Spaces:  The incorporation of flexible staff welfare spaces that can evolve with the changing needs of hospitals – such as including additional spaces like the Doctors' Mess or On-Call accommodation – demonstrates that space allocation should be adaptable to the specific needs of each Trust. 

Long-Term Investment in Staff:  Investing in staff wellbeing isn't just a short-term solution – it's a long-term strategy that leads to reduced turnover, improved retention, and a stronger organisational culture.  This creates a sustainable workforce that feels valued and empowered.   

Eamonn Sullivan is an experienced NHS executive director, board member and clinician with a career spanning over 30 years leading complex NHS teams in major acute and specialist Trusts. He has a successful record of working with NHSE and DHSC at regional and national level and internationally with the British Army. He was awarded an MBE in 2021 and Honorary Doctorate in 2024 for services to healthcare.

Elaine Turner’s focus includes workforce design, reskilling, and the redesign of roles, particularly in estates and facilities management. With over 19 years in the NHS, Elaine has led initiatives such as training COVID vaccinators in London and overseeing Nightingale London volunteers. She has also worked at Health Education England on projects like Nursing Associate and Apprenticeships. Before joining the NHS, Elaine worked in market research, focusing on culture transformation in hospitality and airlines.

The UK Government’s ambitious New Hospital Programme (NHP) is set to revolutionise healthcare infrastructure, with £15 billion allocated over the next five years. At the core of this transformation is Hospital 2.0—a forward-thinking, standardised approach developed in collaboration with clinical professionals. Hospital 2.0 is designed to accelerate construction timelines while embracing modern building techniques, placing workforce wellbeing at the centre of these developments. The NHP Workforce team has partnered with a Wolfson Economics Prize-winning design studio to create innovative solutions for the future of healthcare. 

Central to this initiative is the introduction of the Hospital 2.0 Staff Welfare Spaces Standards. These pioneering standards redefine how staff wellbeing is prioritised, ensuring the hospitals of tomorrow are not only places for healing but environments that support and empower those who care for others. The approach is backed by extensive global research, including insights from 65 national and international best practices and 120 academic studies. 

Hospital 2.0 mandates that every new hospital allocate a minimum of 5-7% of its total space to staff welfare. This session will discuss more about how these spaces are designed to enhance staff experience, boost morale, and ultimately improve patient care, through:  

• Break rooms with locally designed kitchenettes, offering staff a vibrant, accessible space to recharge or connect with colleagues. 
• Changing rooms near high-traffic departments, featuring modern showers and ample locker bays for convenience. 
• Calm rooms for staff to take restorative breaks, inspired by lessons from the pandemic to promote mental clarity. 
• On-call accommodation, allowing staff to rest before heading home after long shifts, ensuring they’re at their best. 
• A Residential Doctors’ Mess 

The session will also touch on how engagement with over 1,500 frontline staff shaped the development of these spaces, which will be integral in reducing fatigue, supporting mental health, enhancing morale, and improving overall staff engagement, which will directly benefit patient outcomes. 

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

Michael Boland Michael is Product Lead of SHAPE, the digital tool developed by Parallel and supported by the Department of Health and Social Care. SHAPE informs and supports the strategic planning of services and assets. With a first class degree in Computer Science, and a deep understanding of the needs of healthcare estates professionals, Michael knows the SHAPE tool inside out, and can help you get the most out of the application so that you can get the most out of your estate.

We’ll look at a metro ICB and look at how they’ve used digital tools to coordinate their Integrated Neighbourhood Teams and drive down health inequalities. The health and social care challenges faced by residents in the city vary dramatically between neighbourhoods. In some wards in the city, up to 80% of residents are from ethnic minority groups, whereas in others it’s just 11%. Overall, the region has the highest deprivation level of all ICBs.

Integrated Neighbourhood Teams (INTs) are teams based in a neighbourhood who are drawn from a range of providers across the community. The region is split into five localities, but each locality is still very large. The ICB team wanted to segment the city further into neighbourhoods, so they can provide more bespoke service provision for the needs of individual communities.

The ICB’s estates team used SHAPE to focus in on different neighbourhoods in their region, using the tool to understand each area in terms of population and demographics, as well as which buildings, facilities and services they have in each neighbourhood.

We’ll examine how the ICB used SHAPE to map their neighbourhoods, then utilised the data to identify underutilised estate, disposal opportunities, efficiencies, integration and co-location of services, giving them evidence to develop a neighbourhood model across their system.

This also meant the ICB could make better use of current space, bringing in third sector, social care and housing teams into healthcare buildings, creating neighbourhood hubs and addressing areas which lack specific services.

1) Real-life examples of how ICBs created their neighbourhood model.

2) How Integrated Neighbourhood Teams can be used to reduce health inequalities.

3) How to use SHAPE to map and understand neighbourhoods in your area, even if the neighbourhoods don't align with primary care network or ward boundaries.

4) How digital data tools can help you be aware of how much void and underutilised estate you have, and identify efficiencies that will help you reduce your estate running costs.

yes

Good Neighbours: How ICBs Use Digital Data to Coordinate Integrated Neighbourhood Teams and Reduce Health Inequalities

Digital Technology & Innovation

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

IHEEM Sustainability Advisory Panel – Leading the Net Zero Transition in Healthcare Estates: Vision, Insight, and Action

Steven Heape — Chair of IHEEM’s Sustainability Advisory Panel — will set out the Institute’s strategic vision for leading the sustainability agenda across healthcare estates. With the NHS committed to becoming the world’s first net zero health system, IHEEM is playing a pivotal role in supporting engineering and estates professionals to navigate the transition.

Steven will present the headline findings from IHEEM’s recent member survey, offering fresh insight into the sector’s capabilities, challenges, and priorities around sustainability. The session will explore the steps needed to upskill the workforce, unlock innovation, and deliver carbon reduction at scale across hospitals and healthcare infrastructure. It will also highlight how IHEEM is strengthening its partnerships and knowledge-sharing platforms to empower members to lead from the front.

This session is essential for anyone involved in healthcare engineering, estates management, or sustainability strategy — and for all those committed to building a resilient, low-carbon future for the NHS.

TBC

yes

Governance, Assurance & Compliance

TBC

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

This Session will cover many nuances of Healthcare design including ventilation commissioning, AHU design and specification, Room pressures and Air Change Rates, Why we ventilate in Healthcare, and Sustainability Strategy for UCV Operating Theatres.

The presentation will assess how the RIBA plan of work is applied to Healthcare construction projects and how we define pressure testing of systems as outlined in BESA DW 143 & BSEN 1886.

Unique clinical research will also be shared on the speed of background levels of concentration discovered within a live operating theatre tested and conducted by a team of specialists under a UCV canopy in a HTM 03-01 Part A designed OR. 

yes

Critical Ventilation Validation & Sustainability Strategy. Considerations for Construction, Handover & Clinical Use.

Learning Points include:

1) An understanding of how to apply the RIBA Plan of Work and when to actively engage with stakeholders.

2) Medical Design Considerations (Assessment, Location of Plant, System Noise & Annual Verification).

3) Ductwork Configuration Considerations in various UCV layout configurations.

4) Mathematical Assessment of EC Fan Pressures and calculation of Air Change Rates (Design & Verification).

5) Sustainability strategy and how to reduce UCV consumption by 60%.

In his current role as the Technical Director, Mike has not only written and delivered many CPD sessions but also assesses the performance of the engineering and design teams.

Mike also acts as the main technical contact for many hospitals across the UK and assesses critical ventilation systems from initial concepts to redesign.

Mike represented Howorth on the working task group for the collation of HTM 03 01 (2021), is registered with the Engineering Council, is a Technical Member of the IET, a Fellow of IHEEM, and is an Associate Member of CIBSE.

Medical Engineering & Healthcare Engineering

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

The Digital Future of NHS Hospitals – Transforming Clinical and FM Pathways Through Smart, Connected, and Intelligent Healthcare  

yes

Digital Technology & Innovation

The 76-year history of the NHS is one of progress and transformation – as a society, technology and medicine have changed, therefore, so has our health service. The NHS England 2025/26 Priorities and Operational Planning Guidance outline the need for the NHS to make full use of digital tools, driving the shift from analogue to digital. Digital Transformation is at the centre of the New Hospital Programme’s and wider NHS Estates ambition, working to change the approach to healthcare to provide improved patient-centred personalised care.  

This session will demonstrate the New Hospital Programme’s progress and its immediate and long-term plans to enhance digital transformation across new hospitals in England, alongside the digital maturity of the existing estate and key areas of focus on how digital interventions positively impact the patient and staff experience.  

The session will cover:  

• How digital interventions across NHP and NHS Estates schemes will support patient pathways 
• How smart buildings, IoT, AI-driven automation, and real-time data analytics will optimise both clinical and Facilities Management pathways 
• NHP’s intention to support and enhance digital-first patient journeys, from automated check-ins, AI-supported diagnostics, and predictive bed management. Recognising and optimising the critical role that smart buildings will play in ensuring a sustainable healthcare estate for the future.    
• NHS Estates’ intention to enhance the digital maturity of existing estate aligned to the transition to smart buildings.

The NHP digital and NHSE Estates team will demonstrate how learning from other digital health programmes and an evidence-based approach will support successful integration across the 46 schemes that form the New Hospital Programme and how the digital maturity will be enhanced across the wider NHS estate.

From automated check-ins to AI-supported diagnostics, and predictive bed management, NHP intelligent Hospitals will create seamless patient-centred experiences.  The session will outline a digital-first patient journey.  

How Facilities Management services, including automated portering, predictive maintenance, digital twin technology, and AI-driven cleaning and waste management, will align with patient flow to improve operational efficiency and safety. 

How real-time asset performance monitoring, energy efficiency tracking, and predictive analytics will support proactive FM interventions and operational resilience, ensuring that decision making for NHS estates and Facilities Management is truly data driven.  

The session will assess the digital maturity of the current estate and identify key priority areas to drive digital transformation.

The session will outline how sustainability and smart buildings are supporting the optimisation of clinical environments and estates operations through digital twins, Net Zero strategies, and energy-efficient technologies.  

Kay oversees the national operational effectiveness of hard and soft FM, including productivity, digital transformation, and workforce management. With over 30 years’ experience in NHS Estates and facilities management, she is dedicated to delivering high-quality services that enhance patient care, believing that Estates and Facilities are central to this provision.
A former Trust Director of Estates and Facilities, ICS estates lead, and the first female National Chair of HEFMA, Kay is a leader in her field. She is also an NHS, STEM, and T-Level Ambassador, actively promoting Estates and Facilities careers in local schools and mentoring professionals in the sector.
Kay Mulcahy is passionate about leadership, innovation, and reducing health inequalities. She strives to elevate the profile of Estates and Facilities within the NHS and seeks continuous service improvements. Additionally, she supports education services through her role as a Governor at a local college group, helping to build the future workforce.

Sarah Thomas has 15 years’ experience in the private sector specialising in healthcare technology. She has worked with large acute hospitals, across Sustainability Transformation Partnerships, delivered pioneering digital strategies and implemented complex digital systems to support healthcare objectives. In the NHP, Sarah leads the digital team to ensure an integrated digital strategy for the entire hospital programme. She plays an integral role in supporting the programme to develop the way that health and care services are delivered through the design, build and operation of hospitals as part of a new, digitally enabled healthcare ecosystem.

Eamonn Gormanis a passionate healthcare IT leader and a nurse with a profound commitment to leveraging Information Technology to elevate healthcare experiences for both patients and staff. In the New Hospital Programme (NHP), Eamonn is responsible for the integration of digital technology and informatics into healthcare settings, creating intelligent hospitals that prioritise innovation, sustainability and high-quality patient care. Eamonn has been instrumental in driving forward the NHP’s digital ambition, leading the development and promotion of the NHP Digital Strategy and creating frameworks to optimise processes and enhance clinical workflows.

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

Current and future working priorities of the IHEEM VTP 2025-26

Medical Engineering & Healthcare Engineering

• Overview of the IHEEM Ventilation Technical Platform
• Current Register of Issued Guidance Documents
• Future Planned Supplementary Guidance Documents
• Future Planned Briefing Notes
• Overview of the Process for Drafting, Peer Review, and Approval for Guidance Documents
• Invitation to submit suggestions for further guidance documents
• Future Priorities for the VTP

An understanding of the role of the IHEEM VTP

An overview of current and future priorities

An overview / open invitation to join and participate in the work of the IHEEM VTP

yes

Andrew has over 30 years’ experience of healthcare estates management with specific and specialist knowledge of water and critical ventilation systems.
Since leaving the NHS in 2010 Andrew established an independent healthcare estates consultancy (Andrew Poplett Enterprises Ltd) which provides AE services for both water and specialist ventilation systems along with general healthcare estates related advice and support.
He has a national client base and currently provides advice, support, awareness training, and independent auditing services to over 30 NHS trusts and private healthcare providers in his role as an Authorised Engineer.
Andrew is the chair of the IHEEM Ventilation Technical Platform and an active regional committee member of IHEEM in the North East region.

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

Tough & Competent or Tepid & Complacent? Who Should Be Steering the Ship?

Value in defining key deliverables – The benefits which lie in attention, accountability and keeping everyone focused.

Understanding how early in a project it can go off course – Projects can go off track surprisingly early.

Key roles and responsibilities in a capital project – In capital projects, success hinges on clear roles and responsibilities.

No one person  has all the answers, it takes a supportive project team – Complexity, scale and volume of decisions demand a team that's more than the sum of its parts.

How quickly can you turn the 'tanker' and return to the right course?

A critical review of the project journey on a large capital scheme in healthcare.

Piloting the project from inception to handover and navigating everything in between. Considering the experience & competences required to pass through such a complex web of competing priorities: budgets, patients, contractors, regulation, local and central government.

This presentation will share our recent real-world experience and learnt best practice, whilst discussing the common pitfalls and wrong turns we may have made. It will include specialist knowledge and guidance from our trusted partners who continue to steer us with our capital project journeys.

It will draw comparisons to other large scale engineering projects, and how their approach could be utilised in large healthcare capital project. Remembering that healthcare engineering isn’t rocket science, but it can look at how the lessons learnt from past tragedy, and how they can be implemented to improve any project.

Moreover, it will consider if we can afford to get it wrong? Can contractors be allowed to decide what steps they take without oversight to reduce time? Who can make a well-meant decision to reduce spend? And the overall impact that these actions have on a project in the long term, well after the hand over from contractors.

In conclusion, this presentation aims to utilise our current experiences to create best practice that all can benefit from, with the target of getting large capital projects completed on time, on budget with patient safety firmly at the heart of this.

Governance, Assurance & Compliance

yes

Terence Close MEng MIHEEM
Terence’s career commenced in private sector design consultancy working across multiple fields including manufacturing, education & healthcare. He joined the Belfast Trust in 2013 as Senior Commissioning Engineer before later assuming the role of Deputy Head of Estate Operations. Alongside responsibilities leading the Medical Engineering and Decontamination Engineering Services, Terence has been the Senior Estates representative with responsibility for assurance on all major capital schemes over the last 10yrs. These schemes have had a combined value approaching £1bn. His energy is rooted in a sincere passion to drive improvement and yield better outcomes based on shared knowledge, competency and professionalism.

Paddy Fitzpatrick BSc MIHEEM
Paddy is Manager of the Estate Validation & Assurance Team in the Belfast Trust. Bringing over 25yrs of experience, he joined the Trust in 2017. A member of the Specialised Ventilation for Healthcare Society, he has co-authored papers and contributed to HTM Review. He spent 15 years as a Mechanical Design Engineer, to a diverse client base. He was an M&E Coordinator for a prominent UK Construction firm and worked as a Resident Engineer on a Major Complex Hospital. Having worked across public and private sectors, design and contracting, Paddy combines extensive expertise with a collaborative ethos when approaching projects.

Louise Clark BSc MIHEEM
Louise started her long and distinguished NHS career in Leicestershire before working across numerous roles and trusts around the UK. In 2024 Louise joined Graham Taylor and team at GPT Consult as Technical Director from Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust where she was Associate Director of Engineering, Working alongside her GTP Consult colleagues she supports the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust as Authorising Engineer for Ventilation and Specialist Technical Advisor. Louise has extensive experience with all aspects of healthcare engineering bringing a unique insight to her work.

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

Claire Harrison
Claire Harrison is Chief Executive of Parallel, a software development company and the providers of SHAPE. SHAPE is a digital tool, supported by the Department of Health and Social Care, which informs and supports the strategic planning of services and assets. A Better Business Case practitioner and passionate about communication and the health sector, Claire prides herself on removing the traditional techy jargon of the digital world to ensure Parallel’s software tools solve their healthcare clients’ data challenges.

When planning for the future, it’s vital to see the big picture in order to make the right decisions.

Commissioned by NHS England, the ICS Strategy Atlas is a central estates database held within SHAPE, which ensures that consistent data is applied at local, place, system and national level to support decision making. The features within the digital tool support scenario planning and drive efficiencies in the business case and strategy development process.

We’ll discuss how ICSs have used SHAPE to create its infrastructure strategy and support delivery plans, identify opportunities to consolidate estate, track underutilised estate, scenario plan to increase the role of community sites and generate savings.

We’ll also discuss how the tool can be used to help align estates and clinical strategies, leading to a more integrated way of working.

Estates professionals will go away with a better understanding of how to fully utilise the digital tools available to save time for their teams and make the most out of their data.

Seeing the Big Picture: How ICSs can use Digital Tools to Support the Delivery of their Infrastructure Strategies

yes

1) The features of NHS England's ICS Strategy Atlas tool held within SHAPE, and that ICSs have access to the digital tool.

2) Real-world examples of how an ICS has used the digital tool.

3) How to use the tool to create and update infrastructure strategies and delivery plans.

4) How to use the tool to identify efficiencies around underutilised estate, and scenario plan for moving and consolidating services.

5) How the tool can be used to help align estates and clinical strategies.

Strategic Health & Social Care Planning

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

The risks of Innovation Bias in NHS Estates: Balancing Innovation with Practicality

•            Balanced Innovation Adoption: Combine MMC with traditional construction methods to optimize outcomes. Prioritize data-driven evaluations and learn from the successes and failures of the past

•            Considered Integration: MMC’s potential must be balanced with considerations of integration into existing infrastructure.

•            Developing Workforce Skills: The shift to MMC requires targeted training to equip estates and facilities teams with the necessary skills to deliverer projects significantly different to traditional construction projects

•            Stakeholder Collaboration: Engaging with all stakeholders is vital to ensure that innovative projects meet the diverse needs of the NHS. Collaboration helps balance technical feasibility with practical usability.

The rapid pace of change in healthcare has prompted a surge in innovation in NHS estates management. While these innovations aim to enhance capacity, patient experience, and sustainability, as well as financial efficiency, the phenomenon of innovation bias poses hidden risks.

Innovation bias, manifests as an overly optimistic interpretation of the value and usefulness of novel solutions while often downplaying the practical challenges and financial impacts of NHS estates.

In the context of NHS estates, Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) seems to offer an innovative approach to these challenges, encompassing a range of techniques promising projects faster, cheaper, enhanced quality, with lower environmental impact.

NHS policy now states a requirement that MMC will be utilised as default on major construction projects, and with the recent commitments to the new hospital programme (NHP), MMC will become a major part of the NHS estate.

However, despite its potential, adopting MMC requires careful consideration. The complexity of healthcare facilities, combined with the unique difference to traditional building techniques, means that the implementation in healthcare building projects must be carefully considered to ensure the successful delivery.

Critically, NHS estates staff must develop a thorough understanding of MMC techniques, including their benefits, limitations, and the inherent unique challenges compared to traditional construction.

Early experiences with MMC in the NHS have demonstrated both the potential benefits and challenges of adopting innovative construction techniques. Lessons from projects to date underscore the need for comprehensive planning, stakeholder collaboration, and ongoing evaluation to mitigate innovation bias and ensure project success.

MMC offers a transformative opportunity for NHS estates. However, the risk of innovation bias underscores the need for balanced, evidence-based adoption. By aligning implementation with operational priorities, environmental goals, and workforce development, the NHS can deliver high-quality healthcare facilities that meet the evolving needs of patients and staff alike.

yes

Raymond Mcfee is a Senior Associate Director at WT Partnership based in Cambridge Office. He is an MBA graduate, where he wrote his dissertation on Innovation in the Public Sector as well as a Masters in Transformational Leadership, where he wrote his dissertation on the Non-linear NHS project environment. He is a PhD candidate with University of East Anglia focussing on MMC in Healthcare. He is also a Member of the Association of Project Managers (MAPM) the Charted Institute of building (MCIOB) a qualified Practitioner in MSP & Prince 2, with track record of developing and delivering complex innovative programmes and projects, as well as broad experience working in both the public and private sectors. Raymond has over 15 years’ experience of developing and delivering strategic improvements in healthcare and has substantial experience in leading complex and innovative change.

Estates & Facilities Services

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

OPEN TO ALL

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

CEF Workshop:  All You Ever Wanted to Ask About Planning and Technologies for a Net Zero 

TBC

TBC

yes

TBC

Energy & Sustainability

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

yes

Governance, Assurance & Compliance

This session will provide a comprehensive update on the progress and evolution of the Technical Standards and Guidance programme since last year’s IHEEM Healthcare Estates Conference. We will begin by reviewing the documents released post-IHEEM 2024. Attendees will also gain insight into upcoming releases, with a preview of documents currently in development and our work across devolved nations on engineering HTMs.

A key focus will be reflections on the outcome of our guidance usability survey. We’ll share findings from user engagement and implementation feedback, highlighting how these insights have informed refinements to both content and piloting of new feedback processes.

We’ll also explore our work to explore the development and refinement of generic rooms and the impact of updates on the suite of rooms across the HBN series.

• Latest progress on guidance updates and estimates for publication dates
• What documents are currently prioritised for future updates
• Outcomes of engagement on guidance usability
• How NHSE and devolved nations are proposing to benefit from cross nation working
• NHSE’s latest thoughts on generic room guidance content

Michael is the Head of Technical Guidance at NHS England and has led the programme for eight years overseeing the updates including HTM 03-01 Specialised ventilation for healthcare buildings and HBN 04-01 supplement 1: special ventilated isolation facilities for patients in acute settings. He drives engagement with the devolved nations, all estates professional organisations and the New Hospital Programme. For 19 years prior he provided technical advisory services in project management, estate strategy/transformation, technical estate assurance, facilities management and business cases.

Abigail has been the Senior Technical Guidance Manager at NHS England since March 2022. Prior to this role, she worked in the NHS for 20 years in capital project and service improvement roles at both acute Trust and regional levels. She provided health planning, design co-ordination, change and project management expertise to support delivery of the award-winning Lousia Martindale Building in Brighton, where she also directed the Art and Interior Design Strategies as Trust lead.
Since joining the NHS England Technical Standards and Guidance Programme, Abigail has used the breadth of her experience and expertise to help drive delivery of the current Health Building Note and Health Technical Memoranda updates, as well as identifying improvements in guidance delivery processes to inform the next tranche of guidance production.

Helen is the Master Plan Lead at NHS England. An architect with a background in healthcare design, she works across the estates team to provide technical responses into strategic and operational programmes.
Since joining NHS England in 2021 she has been supporting the technical guidance programme with architectural input on the HBN’s. Working with delivery partners to provide client-side testing of assumptions, obtaining supporting evidence for changes and making sure the outputs delivered are clear and unambiguous.

NHS England – Standards and Guidance Update and Strategic Developments

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

yes

Healthcare environments are constantly evolving to address the ever-changing landscape of both patient needs and infections risks. When planning healthcare buildings that will stand for decades how do project teams and infection control come together to innovate and build patient experience, whilst ensuring patient safety? 

Too often, the patient experience and patient safety are considered to be competing goals when it comes to the built environment.  The reality is that both infection control and design teams are aiming to deliver the best possible space for patients to receive care and to maintain holistic wellbeing. Misunderstandings about the roles and processes of these disciplines can create the impression that patient experience and patient safety are mutually exclusive. 

This presentation will highlight the challenges in designing healthcare spaces that must remain functional as patient needs and infection risks evolve. Covering examples where innovation and ambitious planning and design have come together to improve both patient experience and patient safety.  It will also cover the challenges of designing buildings that need to retain functionality in the face of ever-changing patient needs and infection risks, and some examples of innovation in response to this need.   

Finally, it will cover the importance of futureproof planning. Given that the healthcare environment is influenced by factors that are not always predictable, it’s critical to understand potential risks and how to manage these processes in scenarios where the data required to respond is not yet fully formulated. Ultimately the session’s target is to emphasise the importance of incorporating flexibility in design to address unpredictable factors in healthcare environments and manage potential risks, aiming to bridge the gap between infection control, design, and patient care.

This abstract forms part of a collaboration between Sidara companies and the Healthcare Infection Society in addressing  Healthcare-Associated Infections in the Healthcare Built Environment.

Two Worlds, One Shared Goal: How can the worlds of infection control, design and planning come together to improve care

– Increased awareness of the different approaches between professional groups

– Improved understanding of examples of innovation and patient experience that have aligned with responses to increasing patient safety

– Introduction of concepts linked to modular or flexible design approaches to support dynamic changes in care models

– Raising awareness of upcoming organism and clinical challenges that will need to be addressed in future built environment development

– Discussing upcoming approaches to facilitate increased responsiveness to clinical risk, such as guidance becoming live accessible documentation rather than periodic release

Rachelle McDade, Director of Healthcare Planning in London, has 28 years of experience in Planning and designing healthcare environments. She specialises in appraisal briefs and strategic master planning, aiming for sustainable designs that minimise environmental impact and maximise flexibility. Rachelle is committed to advancing digital healthcare solutions that improve patient care and enhance staff working conditions through innovative design and technology.

Professor Elaine Cloutman-Green is a Consultant Clinical Scientist working within Infection Prevention and Control and as Lead Healthcare Scientist at Great Ormond Street Hospital. She holds an Honorary Professorship with UCL and was awarded the British Empire Medal as part of the New Years Honours in 2021 for services to healthcare. Her work focusses on the role of the environmental in transmission of infection, as well as the use of molecular tools to investigate transmission events and antimicrobial resistance. Follow @girlymicro on social media if you’d like to get in touch.

Strategic Health & Social Care Planning

Open to conference delegates.  Pre-booking required. Conference delegates will be sent the link to book in September.

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

CEF Workshop:  Procuring for Net Zero – CEF Forthcoming Tranches 

TBC

yes

TBC

TBC

Energy & Sustainability

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

Prevents cost increases from poor early-stage decisions

Combines Digital/AI/Sustainability: computational, parametric design tool revolutionising decision-making, helping Trusts/Boards choose optimum high-performing conceptual design solutions 

More more efficiencies generated, more funding retained for provision of clinical services/redeployment for other Trust capital projects 

Clinical and engineering-led architectural approach means far fewer areas are sacrificed when value engineering, due to design/cost model alignment from outset 

Daisy identifies paths to balance between construction-stage and operational carbon. Its multi-objective results identify a bespoke set of options to prioritise varying amounts of daylight/additional heating/cooling requirements through integrated façade/environmental simulations 

yes

ERIC and PAM Increase Understanding of NHS Estates…Now DAISY, a Digital, AI, Sustainability Tool Mitigates NHS Estate Project Overspends 

Business case process inefficiencies lead to several iterations, with designs revisited to fit affordability, whilst maintaining clinical functionality. Substantial re-working could be reduced if Stage 0/1 decisions were optimised, and Trusts/Boards were fully appraised/armed with rationale understanding why certain parameters have been prioritised.   

DAISY, our AI-powered, data-driven computational tool, assesses/compares thousands of potential building design options, assessing parameters including carbon, energy, MMC, clinical adjacencies, travel distances, FM and site logistics, driven by parameters a Trust determines important to assess. It provides tools to quantify parameters/understand strengths/risks of potential designs from project outset.

 Bringing in DAISY early, at the crucial point in a project’s lifecycle for selecting optimum, low-carbon design solutions, allows us to understand how whole design can be truly optimised when multiple design-discipline teams are involved. We can create conceptual designs using data from each design team member, analysing to make informed building optimisation decisions. 

By rapidly assessing many potential designs, DAISY goes beyond basic parametric design, allowing designers to identify parameters based on multiple objectives to compare potential designs that enable high building performance. They can better understand long-term savings possible through early design optimisation. 

De-risking designs early allows more capital funding to be diverted from reworking a capital project and invested into other Trust capital projects. Whilst capital/revenue are separate, from the start of design development, the intention is design considers lifecycle/proactive maintenance requirements and operational carbon impact. This reduces long-term energy/maintenance bills, which impacts on reducing backlog maintenance/revenue spend.  

Features: 

• Multi-objective optimisation: full visibility/fine-tuning of trade-offs across iterations
• Maximises building performance: identifies/improves building  design/performance, transforming the average to the exceptional  
• Early-stage AI intervention: harnesses computational exploration/machine learning to explore thousands of designs at earliest stages. Facilitates faster evidence-based decision-making with greater certainty. 

Digital Technology & Innovation

Matthew Palmer is an experienced structural engineer, discipline and project leader and director. Over his 23-year career he has designed and managed the civil and structural design process on a number of landmark regional, national and international healthcare schemes, currently acting as Engineering Project Director on the James Paget University Hospital NHP scheme.

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

The Role of the Authorising Engineer in Medical Device Management – AE (MD)

Head of Clinical Engineering, The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust

yes

Medical Engineering & Healthcare Engineering

How the AE (MD) can help improve all areas of medical device management

What IHEEM and the medical device technical platform are doing to help develop the AE (MD)

The Authorising Engineer is a well-established role within many high risk services across the healthcare infrastructure and will be familiar to anyone working within Estates. The new role of the AE (MD) has been developed to help provide Trusts with an independent oversight of their medical device management governance arrangements. This not only covers the roles of the Clinical Engineering teams but extends to all areas of medical device management from procurement to training, and ultimately improved patient safety. This presentation will explain how the role of the AE (MD) will contribute to a more effective and safer patient environment.

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

1) The results of research which demonstrates that the estates function is under-represented on NHS boards.

2) How the sidelining of estates causes problems in the wider NHS.

3) How the skills of senior estates staff can bring great value to NHS senior leadership teams.

4) A number of things you can do to champion the estates function in your organisation and ensure estates has the voice that it deserves.

yes

Emma Bolton has had 20 years’ experience working in local government, the NHS and the private sector. She’s overseen parts of CQC/NHS England’s ‘Well Led’ assessments of boards, she’s passionate about estates, and is currently shouting about the value of estates whenever she attends any of the 14 boards of which she holds a directorship.
Emma is currently Chief Executive of Sewell Advisory, a 60 person-strong estates consultancy which works extensively with the health sector to solve estates challenges.

The Mystery of the Missing Estates Director: Why it's Crucial that Estates is Represented on Healthcare Boards.

This presentation is a must-attend for any senior estates staff who want to raise the profile of estates in their organisation. 

Emma Bolton will use her extensive experience working at a senior level in the NHS and other organisations to examine the problem of why the estates function is so rarely represented on NHS boards, and will look at the problems this causes, and ways in which it can be solved.

She will talk about research she has conducted into how many NHS trusts have estates directors on the boards (a very small proportion), and how estates is often represented by finance directors, seeing estates through a purely financial lens.

Emma will then make the case that the lack of estates representation on boards is a problem for the wider NHS, with thousands of clinical incidents a year caused by failures in the estates and facilities infrastructure. She will champion the skillset of estates directors, demonstrating that having estates directors on boards would bring in valuable skills to the senior leadership team, as well as ensuring that estates spend is prioritised, and prevent estates being an afterthought.

Finally, she’ll look at how it’s the role of all estates staff to champion the estates function, and will look at some ways in which all estates and facilities staff can make sure they’re visible in their organisation, enhancing the role and reputation of estates and ensuring estates has the voice it deserves.

Strategic Health & Social Care Planning

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

New Models Of Private Investment: What Can We Learn From The ‘First Generation’ of PPP In The NHS?

yes

Martin Clark is Currie & Brown’s UK Head of Healthcare and Senior Director for Specialist Advisory Services. He has worked in the healthcare sector for over 36 years, spending 11 years in the NHS and 25 years in consultancy. Martin worked on PFI hospital schemes, and first wave LIFT schemes and has a detailed knowledge of capital investment in the NHS, specialising in business case development. Martin is recognised for his ability to work closely with Board-level clinical, strategy, estate and finance teams on the development of capital solutions to meet clinical service needs.

Helen Pickering is Currie & Brown’s global health sector lead providing strategic and pre-construction advisory services to healthcare clients. Helen has over 20 years’ experience in the healthcare sector and has held leadership roles in the business for the past 10 years. She has worked for NHS clients in the delivery of PFI hospitals and establishment of LIFT companies, as well as undertaking complex PFI variation projects. In her global role she also brings learnings from international PPP models where we have been advising governments.

Jonathan Wilson is a Director at Currie & Brown with over 20 years’ experience managing technical advisory teams providing services in connection with PPP/DBFM projects. He has an in depth understanding of the different cultures, working practices and construction and maintenance markets across UK and Europe and his key skills include lender/investor due diligence. design review, technical risk allocation, payment mechanisms, and performance monitoring. Jonathan has ongoing roles on a number of PFI schemes including John Radcliffe Hospital, North Middlesex Hospital, Darent Valley Hospital, and Karolinska Hospital in Sweden.

We are looking at “reinventing” the PPP approach, however the knowledge base is dwindling, so we need to consider the best way of developing the expertise required.

Healthcare delivery via PPP is complex; however, a well-managed programme will identify, apportion and mitigate risks before they arise. 

Experience tells us that anticipation of changing needs and demands should be built into the design and contractual frameworks for new PPP hospitals.

Many international PPPs are more recent than the UK PPPs, so the evolution of PPP globally and lessons we can learn for the UK will be a key learning point.

There has been much speculation, fuelled by reports from the NHS Confederation and CIPFA among others, that the Government is planning to relax the rules restricting the use of private sector investment to fund NHS capital developments. As talk turns to what form new Private Public Partnership (PPP) models might take, it is essential that we consider the lessons that can be learned from the ‘first generation’ of PPP models, including PFI, LIFT, Hub and MIM.

For example:

• There needs to be a clear link between condition throughout the concession period and on expiry. Improved variation protocols are needed to improve the speed and reduce cost of variations to the public sector.
• For lifecycle replacement, proper consideration for taking areas out of use is needed so that cyclical maintenance and refurbishment can be completed.

• There need to be clearer and more flexible lease agreements which enable greater use of healthcare facilities to the benefit of patients and staff

• Later healthcare PFIs typically did not include soft services and earlier deals frequently removed them from scope. Across the sectors, it seems clear that where services have a direct interface with public users, these are best delivered by the public sector.
• Utilisation of LIFT schemes is a major issue and an expensive cost for the ICB’s to underwrite.  Systems often use the estate as a blocker rather than an opportunity – better LIFT/NHS system collaboration on governance would address this issue. 

Drawing on Currie & Brown’s extensive experience of working on PPP schemes as strategic advisors, cost managers, project managers, SPV technical advisors and investors since the 1990s, this presentation will set out our views on how new PPP models should respond to the lessons learned from the ‘first generation’ of PFI, LIFT, Hub and MIM schemes.

Governance, Assurance & Compliance

BOOK YOUR EVENT PASS

Responding Proactively to Local Housing Growth Pressures on Acute Healthcare Facilities with a Dynamic Costing Model 

yes

Strategic Health & Social Care Planning

Clarity on regional population change, with direct translation into departmental capacity requirements  

Evidence-based cost estimate to support local capital negotiations

Dynamic model the Trust can update to assess impact of new housing schemes in real-time

Strategic planning of community resources and business case planning. Particularly with a focus on mitigating future unmet need at the hospital through community prevention initiatives/alternative pathways

We were able to take our experience and learning from primary care assessments and combine this with in depth knowledge of hospital operational planning to create a comparative approach to that employed for primary care S106 funding requests

Developed an action plan for Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust (MSFT) to respond to their recurrent challenge of how they as a large regional acute provider with multiple hospital sites, could accurately quantify impacts of local planned residential development across its 9 LA boundaries for the next 10-15 years. They required an evidence-based approach to determining capacity implications for core services but also strategic capital investment requirements/opportunities to meet additional population need.

We combined approaches/expertise  we've utilised in primary and acute service healthcare planning/population health assessments. We developed a dynamic population impact costing tool and a comprehensive report including residential development mapping and detailed functional content forecast/costs. This addressed how much extra capacity they need to meet needs of an extra 100k people, the cost and who should be accountable for securing funding.

Pilot version of the dynamic costing tool was an additional output, allowing the Trust to enter housing figures for an indicative idea of capital requirements/capacity growth. We could support MSFT dialogue with commissioners to move the dial on prevention/community resource development to meet the unachievable demand profile that model outputs indicated.  

Approach 

Captured hospital baseline activity position for core service areas,  mapped geographical flows/hospital catchments based on GP referral data and Forecast Non-Demographic Growth  

Mapped population growth, changing age-profile based on ONS forecasts and LA-published housing plans (risk adjusted for historical housing stock delivery against targets)

Applied Demographic, Local Development Plan Housing Insights and Non-Demographic population change levers to calculate additional people within each hospital catchment  

Illustrated impact on future service demand, based on current attendance/admission rates and average stay times. This was translated into future capacity need

Additional capacity costed on benchmarked assumptions/cost accountability mapped to each LA area based on concentration of residential development

Nicola Parrott is a Technical Director, and the national lead for Healthcare Planning in WSP’s healthcare advisory services team with over 20 years’ relevant experience planning and delivering healthcare projects in the UK. Nicola has spent her career working across both NHS and Private sector advisory roles including Health Service operational management, strategy, planning and improvement with a significant period in senior strategic and programme leadership roles. She has undertaken a diverse range of opportunities, including roles in operational management, planning and business development within a number of hospitals, mental health providers, primary care, and community providers; and has supported local and regional commissioners and ambulance trusts.

Nicola has led strategic healthcare planning, transformation and capacity modelling programmes across primary care, community services, acute trusts and specialist mental health providers in both the UK and in Australia

Chelsea Parkes has 10 years’ experience working in healthcare, working as a Healthcare Architectural Technician before becoming a Senior Consultant in WSP’s healthcare advisory service. She has been key in roles such as technical authoring some of the HBN guidance document updates, producing clinical and estate strategies, reports and master planning briefs. This includes the ability to review existing estates, show best practice activity space planning, clinical adjacencies, and patient pathway development.