Opening the show
The event opened with a lively keynote from IHEEM’s CEO Pete Sellars, setting the tone for a conference dedicated to learning, collaboration, and forward-thinking solutions for estates management.
Speaking to a packed audience, Sellars reflected on the show’s theme, ‘Prevention is Better Than Cure,’ highlighting the value of collective learning.
“This year’s theme provides a real timely opportunity for everyone to pause, reflect, and learn from our vast collective knowledge and past experiences, whether they’re good or bad, to help us get it right going forward,” he said. “The next couple of days are about honest discussions about how we can do things better.”
He outlined the major challenges facing estates professionals, including “the largest capital investment programme in England ever, increasing infrastructure risk and backlog maintenance, workforce challenges, Net Zero,” and the need to embrace new technologies.
Sellars noted that despite these pressures, the event was a chance to share successes as well as tackle the sector’s obstacles: “There’s been many, and we shouldn’t forget them. We should also talk about that as we think about the future.”
Attendees were promised a packed programme over the two days, all designed to foster networking, knowledge sharing, and celebration of achievements.
Sellars highlighted the scale of the exhibition: “I think we’ve got the largest exhibition event anywhere in Europe, with something like 270 exhibitors here for the next few days. You’ve got a fantastic opportunity to go talk to them, see what they’ve got to offer in terms of helping you deliver your services, what new innovative products they have — they’re there to help. They’re there to share. Please engage.”
Sellars’ opening remarks struck a balance between humour, inspiration, and pragmatism. His personable style, combined with a clear focus on the sector’s challenges and opportunities, set an energised and reflective tone for the show.
His comments were immediately followed by three industry heavyweights — Eddie McLaughlan (NHS Scotland), Stuart Douglas (NHS Wales), and Simon Corben (NHS England), who each spoke on how preventive strategies can shape the future of healthcare estates.
Learning lessons
Eddie McLaughlan focused on lessons learned that were emerging from a Scottish hospitals inquiry, stressing that the issues under scrutiny are not unique to Scotland and carry relevance for healthcare estates across the UK.
He explained that the public inquiry is examining problems linked to the delivery of two major hospitals in Scotland, and emphasised that the inquiry is about learning, not blame. “It’s not about finding who’s going to get the blame for all the things that went wrong, it’s about learning the lessons through,” he said.
He cautioned against viewing failures as the result of poor intent. “You don’t get these enquiries because hospitals are being built by people who are cowboys… you get these problems because serious people trying to do a good job can find themselves in circumstances where the outcome they get is not the outcome they sought to get.”
Turning to practical lessons, McLaughlan outlined key themes, starting with assurance and compliance. “It’s important in delivering a project… to make sure that the compliance is positively verified,” he said.
On the use of guidance, he urged caution when deviating from established standards. “When you deviate from the guidance… you have to make sure that you’ve discharged your duties under the relevant legislation,” he said.
He also highlighted communication and culture as critical success factors, warning that pressure to meet time and cost targets can undermine quality. “If you lose the balance between time, cost and quality, you can end up with a hospital that you then have to go back and put more time and more cost into,” he said.
Sharing knowledge and findings
Sharing learning nationally was another core message. “There’s no point in Glasgow learning problems about its new building and then not telling everybody else,” he said, underlining the importance of collective learning across health systems.
McLaughlan also addressed the financial consequences of failure, “We can’t afford to be spending money chasing things down when we could have got them right in the first place,” he said. “Follow the guidance… maintain the golden thread.” He concluded by challenging the sector to lead cultural change, so that future hospitals are places “you would be happy to put your loved ones in need of care.”
Stuart Douglas of NHS Wales offered a Welsh perspective on the conference theme, sharing lessons in collaboration, workforce sustainability and independent assurance.
Addressing the audience, Douglas said he would share “things that we’ve learned in Wales”, stressing that he was “not suggesting any replication of what we do”, but offering principles that others might apply in their own systems.
Workforce shortage
He warned of growing risks to safe and compliant services through the loss of experienced professionals: “One of the threats that we perceive in Wales is the risk of losing skilled and accredited workforce. Far too many of us are at the wrong end of the scale age-wise.” He added that the loss of specialist skills and independent assurance capability poses a critical challenge.
Central to his message was collaboration. “The principle that I’d like to share with you this morning is that of collaboration, sharing resources in order to be able to maintain access to accredited people… and being able to secure independent assurance,” he said.
Douglas outlined the role of NHS Shared Services in Wales, which provides specialist estates, engineering, fire safety and facilities expertise to health boards and Welsh Government. He described the organisation as a way of retaining skills “that organisations can’t just recruit to immediately”.
He also explained how Shared Services role has changed within capital projects. “We’ve actually come forward and started to play a much more formative role,” he said, with specialists now joining project boards to act as a “critical friend”, providing early challenge on issues such as contingency spend, emerging claims, and risk management.
Douglas highlighted how closer working with Welsh Government has helped unlock investment to address infrastructure risks identified through engineering and fire safety reviews. “One of the fantastic things that Welsh Government did was to start to highlight the fact that there would be money that they could invest in response to the things that we were finding,” he said.
He encouraged delegates to reflect on how similar collaborative models could work elsewhere: “Perhaps you could just reflect in other situations how you might collaborate to prevent a loss of service through lack of skills.” He emphasised the continued need for honest challenge across organisations, adding: “We need to call upon people to be honest, critical friends that will say what they see in order for us to drive towards providing the quality services that we need.”
Simon Corben, Director and Head of Profession for NHS Estates at NHS England, offered a strategic overview of the national priorities shaping the future of the healthcare estate.
National priorities
Thanking IHEEM and the conference organisers for the invitation, Corben framed his address around four key areas aligned to both NHS and wider government objectives: statutory responsibilities, strategic planning, capital deployment, clinical productivity and, most importantly, the workforce.
Focusing on capital investment, Corben described the past year as a pivotal moment for estates, highlighting the publication of the NHS plan and the accompanying 10-year infrastructure strategy as a “game-changer” for the sector.
For the first time, he said, the NHS now has long-term assurance around capital funding. “Too often we’ve been stuck with yearly allocations that simply do not work for effective delivery. This long-term commitment fundamentally changes how we can plan and invest,” he said.
Corben detailed how £119 bn of capital has been committed over the next decade, including £24 bn for the New Hospital Programme. He also highlighted the role of the national ‘Shape’ digital platform in providing a single, detailed view of the NHS estate, enabling stakeholders to assess building condition — and future investment needs — with far greater clarity.
Alongside this, Corben underlined the importance of development control plans and strategic partnerships, both within the NHS and across the private sector, to maximise the impact of forthcoming investment.
Illustrating what effective capital deployment can achieve, Corben pointed to major schemes, including the £400 m mental health dormitories programme at North Manchester General Hospital. He described the transformation delivered by these projects as “extraordinary”, noting both the dramatic improvement in patient environments and the significant operational benefits for staff.
Turning to productivity, Corben addressed recent ERIC data, acknowledging that backlog maintenance and operational costs have risen. However, he emphasised that productivity levels are now back to pre-pandemic performance, with more than 20 million additional patients moving through the estate compared with 2019. He also highlighted encouraging reductions in reported infrastructure failures, crediting better targeted investment, while warning that the impact of such failures on services continues to rise.
Central to Corben’s address was the workforce. With forecasts indicating that 23 per cent more staff will be required by 2035, he described recruitment and development as the defining challenge for the coming years. He highlighted the social value and national impact of working in NHS estates and facilities, calling it a unique opportunity for young people entering the profession.
Corben outlined a series of initiatives aimed at strengthening the workforce pipeline, including the continued growth of apprenticeship programmes, expanded graduate recruitment, and national programmes such as NHS Chef, now in its fifth year.
Concluding his address, Corben called for collaboration across the sector to expand opportunities for apprentices and graduates and to drive forward digital solutions. Reflecting personally on the challenges facing young people entering the workforce, he said the NHS has “the power to do something really special” for the next generation.
AE announcement
Following these opening sessions, there was a major announcement — IHEEM will now take responsibility for managing the Authorising Engineers (AE) Register.
It felt like a big moment when NHS England’s Simon Corben and IHEEM’s Pete Sellars signed a formal contract officially designating IHEEM as the sole owner and overseer of NHSE’s AE Register going forwards.
This can be seen as a significant advancement for the industry, as it enables centralised management of the Authorising Engineers process, and will provide a single point of oversight for the validation, accreditation, and ongoing professional development of AEs. Sellars said the benefits of the new arrangement will help support Authorising Engineers throughout their careers and ensure high professional standards are maintained.
One of the standout exhibits at the show for me was the New Hospital Programme (NHP) Hospital 2.0 single-bedroom prototype. This was the first time that the industry could have a live look at what the NHP believes can be the future of inpatient accommodation.
The full-scale prototype of a standard inpatient singlebedroom — complete with ensuite and adjoining corridor — was designed in collaboration with offsite construction specialists Reds10. It’s all about standardising the design so that it can be easily repeated, with adjustments for specialist bedrooms — such as for children or maternity wards. The layout has been thought through to consider staff workflow, patient safety, and, more importantly, infection control.
The prototype is a major step in the plan to build 40 new hospitals, a tangible element of what future hospitals could look like for a whole host of NHS Trusts.
By testing layouts, technical interfaces, and patient-staff flow before construction, the programme aims to ensure consistency and efficiency from the off.
Commenting on the prototype’s reception, NHP’s Kitty Dimbleby said: “The response to our Hospital 2.0 single-bedroom prototype was fantastic. A highlight for me was hosting members of the press — a normally tough crowd — at the prototype and seeing their enthusiasm first-hand.”
Key exhibitors, new products
Healthcare Estates 2025 was a real showcase for innovation, with a number of companies unveiling new and improved products for the sector.
For example, Power Control launched a modular UPS system, designed to be quicker to repair, more resilient, and space-efficient — a solution tailored for hospitals where reliable power is critical.
Matt de Frece, Head of Sales at Power Control, shared his perspective on the show and why it remains an important event for his company: “We’ve been at Healthcare Estates a few years in a row now, and that’s because it’s quite a critical market for Power Control — about 35% of what we do is in the medical sector.”
Reflecting on the pace and activity of the event, he added: “It’s quite a busy show. We’ve just launched a new product, which is a modular UPS that we think is going to be really popular in the hospital environment.”
Tim Checketts, Commercial Director at Bender, reflected on the scale and impact of the event, saying he was “really excited by the number of people” at the show. “I hadn’t quite expected it to be honest… but certainly really, really impressive,” he said.
He highlighted the importance of the show for demonstrating Bender’s solutions: “It’s really interesting because with the constant implementation of new healthcare technology, power networks to support that technology become ever more complex… So you can imagine that if… you’re in the middle of an operation or you’ve got someone hooked up to a kit which is keeping them alive… it becomes extremely important to make sure that the resilience of the power network is at its absolute best.”
Bender was showing Pulse, a software platform that integrates with its IPS systems and a range of third-party devices to provide early warnings of potential power issues and enable remote management. The solution also gives hospitals greater visibility of energy usage, supporting operational efficiency and progress towards Net Zero objectives.
I managed to speak with Stewart Warwick, Inform Product Manager at KWC DVS, about their product on display. He said: “Inform is our intelligent cloud-based water management system.”
He described how it helps estates and facilities teams take a proactive approach: “It gives estates and facilities managers the information needed to understand their water systems behaviour and take a proactive approach. If they don’t know what the water system is doing, it’s very difficult to make any changes because you don’t have the information to base them upon.”
He explained the system’s role in improving efficiency, and said, “If you don’t know where the problem, is it’s very difficult to fix it. So that’s where the data comes in. It takes a lot of the guesswork out. People can base their actions on facts.”
I also caught up with Jim Howlett, Business Development Manager at RenEnergy, to talk about solar energy in the healthcare sector and the company’s presence at the show. He explained the dual benefits of solar installations: “I think where a lot of healthcare estates are in their Net Zero journey is they’ve got the challenge of how they decarbonise and reduce electricity costs.”
Howlett described the growing interest in solar among NHS estates, driven in part by government funding: “We’re starting to see a lot of interest now because funding is now becoming available through the public sector decarbonisation scheme.”
He highlighted RenEnergy’s focus for the show: “We’re trying to show what we can bring to the table in terms of installations particularly focused on solar canopies over car parks, which generates a lot of interest.”
You can find out more about the different products on display at the show on our website.
Keynote conference
The keynote and conference programme at Healthcare Estates 2025 was enormous. I still remain impressed that the teams responsible for the event managed to deliver such an in-depth, well thought out and relevant programme — and managed to squeeze it into two days. It seemed to cover everything from national policy, digital innovation, engineering excellence and estates leadership, all whilst looking at the core theme.
The keynotes themselves and the main flow was structured around five central pillars.
1. Strategic Health & Social Care Planning
Sessions focused on system-wide integration, long-term estate transformation, and the shift towards community-based care. Highlights included Dr Manju Patel and Matt Griffiths on NHS anchor institutions, and Jeanette Leach on affordable estate solutions. There was also a talk on NHS staff wellbeing.
2. Governance, Assurance & Compliance
Practical governance and compliance challenges were explored, including real-time risk dashboards, the 2023 Procurement Act, linking regulation with patient safety and operational resilience. A notable presentation was a talk on new models of private investment, and what we can learn from historical PPP agreements. Many spoke with me on ways to pay for new healthcare construction.
3. Digital Technology & Innovation
Digital transformation ran as a golden thread through the programme, from AI-led estate planning and smart hospital innovations to applied tools for compliance, patient flow, and space management.
There was a strong focus was on how data-driven decision-making is reshaping both operational and strategic estates management. Lots of my conversations included mention of this.
Several sessions stood out here, including NHS England and NHP’s discussion on the digital future of NHS hospitals.
4. Medical & Healthcare Engineering
The IHEEM Technical Platforms provided authoritative updates across decontamination, electrical, ventilation, water, mechanical and medical devices, reinforcing the event’s position as a knowledge-sharing forum for technical leadership.
Sessions such as Dr James Soothill’s research into antimicrobial drainage technologies and AE Mike Dunne’s talk on critical ventilation validation and how it relates to construction reflected the depth of innovation taking place at system level.
The IHEEM diversity and inclusion group’s discussion on the path to inclusivity was important listening, too.
5. Estates & Facilities Services
This part of the programme particularly addressed Net Zero delivery and backlog maintenance.
Case studies from Trusts across the UK showcased predictive asset management, hydrogen readiness, heat pump deployment, and FM efficiency measures. There were talks on UPS and IPS, water system failings and emerging risks — and their potential solutions.
Workshops and specialist seminars
The delegate-only workshops added even more depth to the speaker programme. There were sessions on hydrogen readiness, geothermal energy, strategic estates management, and procuring for Net Zero.
The themed seminar theatres — covering Energy & Sustainability, Water Safety & Infection Control, Performance & Compliance, Engineering for Resilience, Smart Hospitals & Digital Innovation, and Design & Construction — offered continuous professional development (CPD) opportunities.
There was really strong representation from key players from within the NHS, major Trusts, leading consultancies and manufacturers, technology providers and IHEEM technical platforms. It seemed to me to successfully balance policy talk and actual operational experience and advice.
As expected, Net Zero and future technology took centre stage, and there was a lot of discussion, rightly so, on patient safety and infection prevention. My discussions with the Healthcare Infection Society (HIS) were particularly illuminating. All of the discussions seemed to reinforce the central message of the event: that prevention, resilience, and much needed intelligent investment in the healthcare estate are critical to patient outcomes — and the continued longevity of the system.
Healthcare Estates Awards
The winners of this year’s Healthcare Estates IHEEM Awards were announced at a black-tie dinner on the first night of the show, which IHEEM invited me to. Industry awards are always an excellent opportunity to reflect on the successes of the previous year, commend innovation and collaboration, and champion those hard-working individuals who are truly making a difference in a particular sector. I was pleased to discover the high calibre of the awards themselves. Judged by a panel of industry experts, hundreds of entries were whittled down to a high-quality shortlist, and the winners selected from there. Look out for interviews in the magazine with several of the winners over the coming months.
A highlight for the team and myself was the special award presented to my predecessor Jonathan Baillie, in recognition of his contribution to the sector, for his exceptional dedication and more than 17 years of service as Editor of Health Estate Journal (HEJ).
Our publisher, Geoff King, of Step Communications, said of Jonathan: “Writing is where he truly excels. To produce issues of a magazine for 17 years with continued enthusiasm is no mean feat. He has established himself as a key figure within the industry and I have no doubt his writing services will continue to be called upon for years to come.”
To see the full list of winners, scan the QR code or go to: www.healthestatejournal.com/story/49953/healthcare-estates-2025-spotlight-on-success
Conclusion
This was my first time attending Healthcare Estates, and I have to say I felt genuinely welcomed from the moment I arrived. Yes, it was full-on — with packed sessions, a busy exhibition hall, and back-to-back presentations — but you could really feel the energy in the room.
There was a palpable sense of enthusiasm, collaboration, and shared purpose among everyone I met. Between the keynotes, exhibitor stands, and the chance to connect with so many knowledgeable professionals, it was clear why this show is such a highlight for the healthcare estates sector. I left feeling informed, inspired, and excited to be part of this community going forward. Bring on 2026!