Current Landscape:
The NHS estate is facing a critical inflection point in 2025. Care is being disrupted at hospitals every day due to aging and inadequate infrastructure. Nearly 44% of NHS hospitals were built before the internet existed, and 11% pre-date the NHS itself. Much of the primary care estate also falls short of modern standards—22% of primary care buildings were constructed before 1948, many of which are former residential properties ill-suited to contemporary healthcare delivery. As identified in the Fit for the Future: 10-Year Health Plan, a transformation of the NHS estate is not optional—it is essential to enabling high-quality, accessible, and digitally integrated care.
Importance and Timeliness of the Event:
The Convenzis Health Estates Conference takes place at a defining moment in the evolution of the health service. As outlined in the Fit for the Future: 10-Year Health Plan, modernising NHS infrastructure is central to achieving long-term clinical and operational goals. With increasing demand, shifting models of care, and urgent decarbonisation targets, the need for investment, innovation, and collaboration across the NHS estate has never been greater. This conference offers a timely platform to explore how the estate can become a catalyst for better health outcomes, equity of access, and financial sustainability.
Key Content Streams:
- Estate Modernisation and Repurposing: Strategies to transform underused NHS and public estate into modern, fit-for-purpose healthcare environments.
- Digital and Diagnostic Infrastructure: Investment in digital systems and diagnostic capacity to enable high-quality, data-driven care.
- Sustainable and Smart Infrastructure: Focus on decarbonisation, energy efficiency, and integrating private sector collaboration to future-proof NHS estates.
- Backlog Maintenance and Safety: Addressing maintenance backlogs to ensure the estate remains safe, accessible, and environmentally sustainable.
We need an estate that provides neighbourhood teams with the equipment, working space and technology they need to make our new care model a reality. Our aim is to establish a Neighbourhood Health Centre (NHC) in every community. We will begin establishing NHCs in the places where healthy life expectancy is lowest. Once open, NHCs will be a ‘one stop shop’ for patient care and the place from which multidisciplinary teams operate. Wherever possible, we will maximise value for money by repurposing poorly used, existing NHS and public sector estate. NHCs will be open at least 12 hours a day and 6 days a week providing access to coordinated services locally, removing the need to go to hospital for urgent care
As a result, problems have been stored up for the future and the NHS in 2025 has crumbling buildings with care disrupted at 13 hospitals a day as a result. Some 44% of hospitals pre-date the creation of the internet in 1983 and 11% of the estate is older than the NHS itself267. Much of the primary care estate is not fit for modern requirements with 22% of primary care buildings pre-dating the foundation of the NHS, many of which are in converted residential properties268. Using both Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and industry benchmarks, the UK is far behind other countries in the levels of computerised tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scanners for its population.
The government will also consider where PPPs and other private finance models could be used to deliver decarbonisation projects – such as renewable energy generation – across the public estate, including the NHS, leveraging private sector expertise and investment.
