Eight things we learned at Healthcare Estates 2025
This year’s Healthcare Estates was full of insightful talks and thought-provoking presentations. But the scale of the event means it’s impossible to be everywhere at once. We’ve rounded up some of the key learning points you may have missed…
NHS England to launch new register
NHS England and IHEEM have partnered to launch a new Authorising Engineer Register. Under the new agreement, Authorising Engineers will be required to be registered with IHEEM, supporting professional standards within healthcare engineering, and ensuring there’s a unified standard of competence and accountability across the profession.
One Public Estate can save you money
Engaging with One Public Estate in your area could create new opportunities to save on running costs or generate income in your area, through partnering with other public sector organisations. Gemma Aked from Hull City Council talked through the Hull Place Pilot, and what they learned from it. See the presentation.
Repurposing old buildings is worth it
Helen Sturdy, Head of Construction and ProCure 23 at NHS England, emphasized that they can see the value of repurposing the healthcare system’s ageing estate, with a repurposing model saving time, cost and embodied carbon compared to new build.
Infrastructure strategies can’t just sit on the shelf
Over 17,000 health locations are mapped in SHAPE, NHS England’s tool of choice for estates and service planning data. This makes it ideal for scenario planning to support the prioritization of capital and revenue spending, and to enable you to create delivery plans for your infrastructure strategy. See the presentation.
AI isn’t always intelligent
Dr Carl-Magnus v. Behr warned us of the perils of using mass-market AI tools to find answers to complex health issues. He showed us how AI doesn’t understand the context of the NHS, and can often provide a plausible answer which “sounds right” but is actually factually incorrect.
You need to know your neighbourhoods
Many areas are struggling with planning for the neighbourhood health service because they don’t have a good understanding of their communities. Jake Abbas of Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership talked through his use of SHAPE to create clear boundaries, a shared evidence base and an understanding of his population’s health need. See the presentation.
Climate change won’t affect us all equally
The NHS Shared Business Services team looked into how the climate emergency affects healthcare. They highlighted that the climate emergency can heighten health inequalities – people in poor housing, or those with existing health conditions, can often be disproportionately affected by our changing environment.
Estates staff need a louder voice
NHS trusts where estates has a high profile benefit from most estates investment, and lower backlog maintenance. Sewell Advisory Chief Executive Emma Bolton spoke about the lack of estates representation on healthcare boards, and how this can have negative effects on not only the estates industry, but healthcare as a whole. Want to know more? Drop Emma a line on LinkedIn and let her know your views!
Interested in knowing more about what we do, or want to pick up conversations you’ve had with any of our team at Healthcare Estates? Contact us at info@sewell-advisory.co.uk