RELOCATION MANAGEMENT
Relocations in live healthcare environments
Healthcare relocations bring with them a host of challenges. Here, Jenny Thorncroft, director, JTS Relocations, looks at how, when managing relocations within live healthcare environments, communication and partnership between estates teams and other stakeholders can minimise disruption, support staff wellbeing, and ultimately help protect patient experience and continuity of care during periods of organisational change.
Across the NHS, estates are being reshaped at pace. Major capital programmes, new hospital developments, backlog driven refurbishments, and service reconfigurations are all driving significant change across the estate. Much of the focus naturally sits on construction, engineering, and commissioning, but one of the most operationally critical phases of these programmes is often underestimated: the physical transition of services, equipment, and departments within live clinical environments. When not properly planned and integrated, this phase can introduce significant risk, from service disruption and asset loss through to increased pressure on already stretched clinical teams. In practice, it is often the point at which otherwise well-planned projects encounter avoidable operational challenges. Unlike construction activity, which can often be
separated from day to day operations, relocation activity takes place directly within the live clinical environment. Wards remain operational, theatres continue to run and critical services must be maintained throughout. This creates a fundamentally different risk profile. Relocation is therefore not simply a logistical exercise. It sits at the interface between construction, commissioning, and clinical operations, requiring detailed planning, careful sequencing, and close coordination with estates and clinical teams to ensure continuity of care is maintained at all times. In complex programmes, this rarely involves a single move. More often, it forms part of a phased decant strategy, with multiple transitions taking place over extended periods, aligned to construction milestones and operational constraints. When managed well, these transitions are barely visible. When managed poorly, the impacts can be immediate and highly visible.
Asset and equipment management One of the most common areas of risk sits around the management of equipment and assets during transition. Healthcare relocations frequently involve the movement of highly specialised, high value, and often sensitive equipment, from diagnostic devices and laboratory contents through to temperature critical materials. Without structured planning and appropriate controls, equipment can often end up temporarily stored in unsuitable locations such as service corridors, ad hoc rooms, or unmanaged spaces, increasing the risk of damage, loss, or non- compliance with infection control protocols. These issues are rarely the result of poor intent but rather a lack of integration between operational planning and physical transition activity. There is a clear opportunity to address this more systematically by integrating relocation planning
with existing estates data and asset management systems. Linking asset tracking during moves into CAFM platforms and wider estate management systems can provide real time visibility of equipment location, status, and condition throughout the transition process, particularly when aligned with operational dashboards and estate intelligence tools. In this context, relocation becomes not just a physical activity but part of a broader, data informed approach to managing clinical environments efficiently and safely. Alongside asset management, maintaining clinical
continuity remains the defining requirement. Moves must be carefully sequenced around clinical activity, often requiring out of hours working and flexible delivery
Relocation planning should integrate estates data.
Alongside asset management, maintaining clinical continuity remains the defining requirement. Moves must be carefully sequenced around clinical activity, often requiring out of hours working and flexible delivery approaches that can respond to changing operational pressures.
August 2026 Health Estate Journal 47
AdobeStock / Jacob Lund
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
