HEALTHCARE ESTATES
were not designed for today’s clinical technology, energy loads and compliance requirements. Conference sessions examine where targeted investment, and engineering action can deliver the greatest gains. ‘2-Tier IT Versus Electrical Infrastructure Resilience Between NHS Estates and Private Sector’ considers differences in infrastructure performance and investment, while ‘Two Estates, One NHS: The MEP Infrastructure Gap We Can’t Ignore’ addresses opportunities to strengthen older sites. ‘Tackling the Maintenance Backlog: A New National Approach for a Safer, More Resilient Healthcare Estate’ will bring together Terry Stocks of AtkinsRéalis and Matthew Warchorn from the Cabinet Office’s Better Buildings programme. Practical presentations on steam systems, boiler-house monitoring, electrical compliance, ventilation, project scoping and the use of retrofit to improve performance feature in the Engineering for Resilience Theatre. These discussions demonstrate how well-planned infrastructure decisions can enhance patient safety, service continuity, productivity and organisational resilience. The programme also gives greater prominence to governance, assurance and medical engineering. Simon Picking, Head of Hard FM at NHS England, presents updates to HTM 02-01 on medical gas pipeline systems, while the IHEEM Medical Engineering Technical Platform examines the importance of Authorising Engineer assurance for medical engineering safety and compliance. Further contributions from IHEEM’s technical and advisory platforms will address water, ventilation, fire safety, electrical systems, decontamination and strategic estate management. Strong governance and engineering leadership are
central to ensuring that capital investment, technical expertise and good information translate into safe, reliable and compliant services over the full life of an asset. By bringing together assurance, specialist knowledge and operational experience, Healthcare Estates helps organisations strengthen capability as well as infrastructure. As healthcare settings respond to climate events, rising demand, ageing assets and increasingly complex systems, the programme will give attendees practical routes to strengthen resilience and make it a defining measure of estate performance.
Making sustainability deliver across new and existing facilities Sustainability remains one of the NHS’s most significant long-term priorities; offering one of the largest opportunities to improve resilience, affordability and asset renewal. The acute estate’s energy bill reached approximately
£1.2 bn in 2024/25, while less than one per cent of estate energy consumption came from on-site renewables. These figures point to considerable scope for innovation, efficiency and investment that delivers both environmental and operational benefits. New-build hospitals can incorporate low-carbon design principles from the outset, while existing buildings offer opportunities for well-planned retrofit delivered around live clinical services. The programme addresses both routes through sessions on integrated decarbonisation, lifecycle optimisation, the Net Zero Hospital Standard, district heating, PFI estates and sustainable infrastructure planning. Mary Aladegbola, Senior Net Zero Technical Energy
Lead at NHS England, updates attendees on the Net Zero Hospital Standard, while NHS case studies examine practical approaches to electric steam, district heating and
applying the Standard in operational settings. Sustainability is a common goal that can unite
organisations facing very different estate priorities. By connecting carbon reduction to energy security, compliance, whole-life cost, operational performance and the renewal of critical infrastructure, the programme identifies actions that support several organisational objectives at once.
Planning for future healthcare models The future of healthcare delivery extends beyond individual buildings. The shift from hospital to community creates an opportunity for estate strategy, service planning, finance, digital infrastructure and workforce design to work together across organisational boundaries. Within the Strategic Health & Social Care Planning stream, ‘Neighbourhood Health Centres: New Vision, Old Buildings - Can the Gap Be Bridged?’ assesses whether existing assets can support new models integrated care. Terry Stocks of AtkinsRéalis and Michael Wood of the NHS Confederation share evidence on the impact of healthcare in the community, while Matt Ward, Associate Director of National Estates Strategy and Planning at NHS England, provides an update on neighbourhood health centres and the ‘left shift’. Examining the realities of delivery - ‘Designing and Delivering a Project to One of England’s Most Remote Communities’ and ‘A Project of a Lifetime: Integrated Neighbourhood Care in Practice on the Isles of Scilly’ show how estate strategy can respond to geography, access and local need. ‘Hospital 2.0 and the NHS Future Workforce’ considers how standardisation and workforce planning must develop together. Attendees are encouraged to think beyond traditional estate boundaries in sessions covering Care Boards, community provisions, developer contributions, ownership and partnerships. The objective is not only to create better buildings, but to create better connected systems to support new pathways of care while making intelligent use of the estate already available.
Investing in skills, leadership and culture Progress across the estate depends on people. The session ‘Mind the Gap... in Skills: Closing the NHS Estates Divide’, led by Terence Close and Victoria McKee of Belfast Health & Social Care Trust, highlights the role of workforce development in enabling long-term transformation. ‘NHS Estates Graduate Engineers: A Year of Impact,
Insight and Innovation’, alongside sessions on team development, workforce planning, organisational capability and the future workforce required by Hospital 2.0, recognise that successful estate management depends on skilled professionals working across multiple disciplines and at every career stage.
September 2026 Health Estate Journal 103
The closing session of Healthcare Estates 2025: ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’
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 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136
