HEALTHCARE ESTATES
Hundreds of industry representatives, ranging from Trusts to commercial companies, attended the 2024 Awards dinner (above left) and mingled at the pre-Awards drinks (above).
diversity and inclusion, particularly for women? The IHEEM EDI Committee are tasked with looking at the full range of opportunities and challenges of diversity and inclusion across the sector – not just for women, but across all underrepresented and minority groups. We were immensely proud to have our first female president a couple of years ago, and for me I think that was a massive step forward. We know the industry and our membership is male dominated, but we have female representation across our directorship and on the IHEEM Council. As a professional institute, we can, and do, promote equality in all disciplines. Interestingly, we are seeing more women entering the medical device side of the business - it’s encouraging to see.
What do you see as the most pressing challenges facing the healthcare estates sector right now? Net Zero targets, funding constraints, ageing infrastructure, and the maintenance backlog are all affecting our industry.
Infection prevention is a big one, and the IHEEM Decontamination Technical Platform is actually our biggest – we’ve got over 30 members who are very focused on this, which affects lots of areas throughout the healthcare estate. There’s a whole range of issues that surround this, and lessons that need to be learned. This is one of the reasons why the Healthcare Estates
2025 strapline is ‘Prevention is better than cure’. A number of those presenting at the conference are going to be discussing some of the major incidents that have happened across the UK in this area, and hopefully we’ll really start to see the learning from it.
How is IHEEM helping members navigate new and evolving regulations such as the Building Safety Act? A lot of our members are on the BSI standards committees. Our technical platforms feedback on any changes and will also work to do some practitioner guidance, too. I know the fire and emergency lighting regulations that come out next year have had a couple of our company affiliates involved, and we’ll be running webinars on the main issues and solutions here. The next annual IHEEM Innovation Conference will also be addressing these issues, too. As things continue to change, we will be putting out and updating our guidance accordingly.
You’ve built a career that has taken you to COO of IHEEM. What first drew you into this sector, and what keeps you motivated? My background is in finance – I’m an accountant by trade. I came via local authority, then went into housing regeneration, then contract catering, then telecommunications, and then I worked for a company that
24 Health Estate Journal October 2025
was going through a managed wind up on car finance. My heart is in the voluntary sector – when I worked in
the housing regeneration sector I used to go out and train community groups on how to get funding from Europe, lottery money etc. I always found the voluntary sector makes more with every penny they’ve got, more than any other sector out there. Then this job came up. I actually got offered two jobs in
the same day – the other was working for an alternative investment fund, which I talked it through with my husband who assured me I’d get bored there. IHEEM was only meant to be temporary, just to hold the reigns for a bit and to keep operations running smoothly during a period of transition. I started in December, with Pete starting at the end of January, and by the end of February we were ripping out the old systems, and moving to a cloud-based remote IT system, and installing new CRM systems. I’ve now been here for seven years. I almost can’t
believe it. That wasn’t really my intention, but every day is different, no two days are the same, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. One day I could be involved in an apprenticeship scheme, the next day doing accounts, and the next running a conference somewhere, or a branch session elsewhere. In a way, the pandemic was a good opportunity for us to focus on the back office stuff we wanted to do whilst we couldn’t have live events. But it’s definitely good to get back to live events, see people and network again. It’s a lovely organisation to work with, and you can really see the benefits of what you’ve been doing and working on, see the system changes in action. I’ve got such a good team around me, and we’ve doubled in size since I started. I couldn’t do this job without every single person, everyone does their bit. I’m incredibly proud of all of them. The team is the most important aspect of my job. If you’ve got a team behind you that support you, and you support them, it just works, everyone moves together in the same direction, and that’s all you can ask for really.
Looking ahead, where would you like to see IHEEM – and the healthcare estates industry – five years from now? I’d like to see IHEEM continue expanding by doing what it’s already doing. I think there’s going to be a lot coming up in the next five years at the Institute, and in healthcare generally. Net Zero, backlogs – I’m not sure how that’s going to happen but I’m hopeful. I think the Healthcare Estates show is as big as it could be, but I hope that it continues to provide the quality of what it is now. I think that’s all we can really hope for. I’m sure the Institute will keep growing, and get bigger and better. I hope we continue to provide more support to members, more services. But personally in five years’ time, I’d like to be retired!
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