Contrasting speakers focus on key issues

Around 100 IHEEM Company Affiliate Members, their guests, and senior representatives from organisations including the Royal Academy of Engineering, IPEM, and CIBSE, as well as from the NHS and its associated construction and supply chains, attended a high-level IHEEM seminar titled Healthcare Estates 2020 in Westminster on 19 November. Topics discussed ranged from how the healthcare estates sector is increasingly being asked to ‘do more with less’, to Lord Carter’s team’s initial findings on the ‘productivity and efficiency’ of NHS Trusts in England. The seminar was followed by a celebratory lunch at the House of Lords, where the keynote speaker was Royal Academy of Engineering CEO, Philip Greenish (see HEJ - January 2016).

The morning seminar, held in the George Thomas Room at Westminster Central Hall, followed similarly successful events held by IHEEM at Westminster over the past three years. With a wide range of speakers, the two-hour seminar packed in a great deal of interesting and topical content. 

IHEEM’s CEO, Julian Amey, welcomed guests by telling them that although the event was a ‘celebration’, it was a ‘celebration with a very important intent’. He said: “We have a huge challenge in the healthcare sector and in the NHS, and we, the Institute, have been working with all our Affiliates to help the Department of Health come up with solutions. Today is all about standing back a little and getting our minds around the longer-term opportunities – for efficiency, innovation, and good practice.”