Healthcare Estates: Mind the gap

It’s not long until Healthcare Estates, the UK’s leading event for healthcare estate management professionals. 

This year, the country’s top health estate experts will be discussing the theme ‘mind the gap’. This reflects on the need to bridge the gap between strategy and delivery, ensuring trusts with legacy healthcare facilities can meet the evolving needs of patients, staff and communities in the same way as those with new healthcare infrastructure. 

Our experts work with health organisations every day, and here are some of the health inequalities we see in action. 

Strategy vs delivery

Health organisations with confident, clear strategies perform better than those who work in a reactive, unplanned way. Without an estates strategy, it’s very difficult to plan, prioritise and improve. You may have lots of projects on the go, but if they’re not all working in cohesion, you’ll end up with contradictory or unplanned results.  

Similarly, if you have an infrastructure strategy or masterplan, but it just sits on the shelf gathering dust, it’s not helping you achieve your goals. Your strategy should be a living document – something you refer to every day and update regularly.  

Investment haves vs have-nots

Some health estates are full of shiny, modern healthcare buildings, funded through public-private partnership schemes such as LIFT, whereas others see their medical staff working in cramped, rundown, not-fit-for-purpose buildings. With 50% of GPs considering their premises not suitable for present needs, and a massive 83% regarding their premises as unsuitable for future needs, external investment is badly needed in the health estate.  

New build vs refurbishment

Building envy is definitely an issue in the health sector. While some trusts are benefitting from the New Hospital Programme, others are trying to get by with old and outdated buildings. But new build isn’t always the only option. Refurbishments and retrofitting can turn your ageing estate into something that’s more than just the sum of its parts, at a fraction of the cost.  

Net zero vs net loss

Some health estates are well down the path to net zero, whereas others are just struggling to keep the lights on and the doors open to patients. Yet even those who have funding for their decarbonisation plans can fail at the first hurdle, with ill-considered sustainability interventions causing more harm than good.  

Whatever side of the gap you fall, we can help you create estates strategies, find and win funding and investment, deliver your projects successfully and create and deliver sustainability plans. 

Find us at Healthcare Estates – we’ll be at Stand F30. 

Get your Healthcare Estates tickets here: https://www.healthcare-estates.com/