Healthcare Property Forum 2024 – review
An overview of the first-ever Healthcare Property Forum, held last week in London
The challenges and opportunities within the medical real estate market were brought to the fore last week as Nexus Media Group, owner of Healthcare Property magazine, launched its first Healthcare Property Forum.
Held in London on Wednesday, the event provided a day of quality content, discussion, and high-level networking for key players in the healthcare property sector.
It offered suppliers the chance to meet with investors and operators in a number of pre-arranged sessions, and a conference stream provided industry insight into key issues facing the market.
This included an overview of the property market for adult social care, primary and acute care, and the private health sector.
Social care property trends
Commenting on the social care sector, Gary Reed, director of property at HC-One, told delegates that the company was embarking on the single biggest refurbishment programme in local authority care homes that the country has ever seen, with £93m being spent across its portfolio over a seven-year period.
This focus on refurbishment, he said, was common among providers struggling to meet the rising capital costs of new-build facilities and with a shortage of suitable developments sites in areas of need.
He said: “Typically our care homes are 30-40 years old and we are looking for opportunities to make the buildings flow better.
“And our biggest challenge is carrying out these improvements while our homes are occupied.”
As well as improving the layout of buildings and the interior design, the company is also focusing on enhancing the energy efficiency of its estate through the installation of solar PV panels, removal of gas tumble driers, and through the use of LED lighting and circadian lighting controls.
And, with land scarce, it is exploring the use of existing space to create additional capacity.
Reed said: “We have found that we can create 650 bedrooms in our existing homes by reconfiguring things like storage spaces and day spaces which have not been used for years.
“That’s the equivalent of 10 care homes we have ready to open.”
Also speaking on the social care property sector at the forum was Mandip Bhogal, a partner in the healthcare property development consultancy at Knight Frank.
He revealed some key statistics from within the sector, including that care home occupancy levels were up from 86% in 2023 to 89% in 2024, fee rates were increasing across the board, and staff costs were reducing, creating an improved market for the coming year.

Mandip Bhogal’s speech provided an overview of the social care property market, which is seeing increased occupancy and higher rates
And he revealed that 29% of current social care bed provision did not conform to market standards and that there would be an estimated shortfall in beds of 86,000 by 2028.
He agreed that refurbishment and the creation of extensions at existing homes was the focus of much activity.
ESG, he added, was also a key consideration.
“The subdued residential market is allowing care operators to be more competitive,” he said.
“There are strong funds out there with an appetite for more care developments.”
Primary and acute care
Speakers in the primary and acute care property session were Sarah Livingstone, executive director of healthcare at CBRE; Nicola Theron, director of estates in North Central London ICS; and Madeline Ball and Lisa Geary, property leads at DAC Beachcroft.
Geary said the primary care property model was shifting away from buildings owned by the GP partners to one where properties are purchased by developers and leased back to medical providers.
And all speakers expected private capital to play a role in the improvements needed to improve the existing estate and create new buildings in both primary and acute care sectors.
Private medical market
The forum also explored the buoyant private medical market, which is being bolstered by the NHS’s waiting list crisis.
Speakers in the session were Nick West of Northwest Healthcare Properties REIT; Paul Fegan of Mansfield Advisors; and Jon Webb of Assura Plc.
They revealed that the NHS is entering a period of ‘hyper demand’, with a record 7.6m procedures on the waiting list. And it will need to rely on independent providers to reduce this and satisfy the growing demand for elective procedures.
In particular, private providers are looking to build satellite units which can carry out elective procedures such as joint replacements and ophthalmology.
Fegan said: “The UK has one of the smallest private acute hospital sectors in Europe, but within the context of an overstretched NHS, it is a critical component part of the overall health system.
“NHS engagement with the private sector has its origins in the last Labour Government – and there’s every sign that engagement will continue.”

Jon Webb revealed the private care property market was entering a period of ‘hyper demand’
Planning challenges
One of the more-heated debates of the day was around the current planning system, which is currently being reviewed by the new Labour government, amid plans to simplify the process.
This was an approach welcomed by speaker, Khosro Bashi of Tooley Foster Architects, who described the current system as ‘ridiculous’.
He said: “There is a huge list of documents you have to provide to make a planning application.
“There is the pre application, which is very detailed and often involves a lengthy wait; then the planning application; then conditions discharge and detailed design; and then amendments or reapplication.
“It is ridiculousness and madness to expect someone with no commitment from the council for the development to put something like that together.
“And then, if you need to make a change when you get to stage four, they will not send you back to stage three, but all the way back to the beginning.
“Some applications take years.”
He also hit out at the duplication in the current process, which sees planning authorities made responsible for issues already covered by Building Regulations or Natural England.
Instead, he proposed a watered-down planning process which involved submitting an ‘application in principle’ followed by a concept design and detailed design phase.
“The current process in dead and buried.
“My proposed system would be a step in the right direction if what the Government wants to do to simplify it,” he said.

Khosro Bashi called for a rethink of the current planning process. This image from his talk outlines the long list of documents demanded by planners. He is proposing a simpler system where everything in red would not be required
But fellow speakers, Anna Gillings of Gillings Planning and Sally Stroman of Aitchison Raffety Group disagreed that the current system was completely inefficient, despite some concerns over the number of applications refused by council committees against the recommendations of qualified planning officers.
Gillings said: “Planning permission does get granted and schemes do get through, so it does work.
“Planners are just doing their job and they have a system to work through, so trying to give as much information as possible helps get the application through.”
Stroman added: “It’s about how can national planning policy better support local authorities and promote healthy communities.”
Other sessions during the forum looked at the role of heat pumps in achieving the NHS’s net-zero emissions target; the shift towards care villages as a one-stop shop for older-age living; and how the arts can help to create more-supportive healing environments.
Speakers included Louisa Williams from Art In Site, Jenny Buterchi from PRP Architects, Clare Connell from Connell Consulting, Nick Sanderson from Audley Care Villages, Gary Broadbent from Pure Thermal, Tim Rook from Clade Engineering, and Tim Steer from Hospital Rooms.
And Sarah Waller from the University of Worcester’s Association for Dementia Studies; Fiona Walsh from DDS Architects; and Harry van de Bospoort and Naomi Roxby Wardle of Hospital Art Studio provided an insight into the importance of wayfinding in creating dementia-inclusive health and care environments.
Walsh said: “Spatial disorientation and declining wayfinding are among the first early symptoms of dementia.
“Every physical environment has a cognitive load and this must be decoded – and for someone with cognitive impairment this becomes a challenge.
“We need to design environments that limit cognitive overload through interventions such as lighting, colour, signage, and furniture.
“Everything needs to be visible to reduce decision making and we need to reduce cognitive overload in all stages of design.
Looking ahead
Commenting on the event, Stroman said: “In addition to the insightful presentations, the event offered a fantastic opportunity to exhibit and participate in speed networking with the attending companies.
“This was a great opportunity for us to broaden our connections and showcase our integrated services.”
Following the success of the event, Nexus Media Group will be running three forums in 2025 on 6 March in Sutton Coldfield, 8 July in London, and 18 September in Newport.
For more information on these, or to book a place, click here.