As the NHS continues to evolve, so must the environments in which care is delivered. From integrated Neighbourhood Healthcare Centres to community diagnostic centres, the future of healthcare is becoming, multi-functional, and patient centred. But, without the right infrastructure, even the most innovative service models can fall short.
That’s where healthcare planning comes in.
Planning for flexibility, not just function
Healthcare planning isn’t just about allocating rooms, it’s about designing spaces that can flex with changing clinical needs. We work with NHS organisations to ensure that estates are not only compliant with HBN and HTM guidance, but also adaptable to future service configurations.
This means designing multipurpose rooms that can support different clinical functions across the week, ensuring adjacencies that reduce patient movement and staff inefficiencies, and creating layouts that can accommodate new technologies or care pathways without requiring structural redesign.
For example, a consult/exam room designed to HBN standards can be used for podiatry on Monday, wound care on Tuesday, and outpatient follow-ups on Wednesday. That kind of flexibility isn’t just convenient, it’s essential for future-proofing NHS estates.
Early engagement = strategic value
One of the most overlooked aspects of healthcare planning is timing. When planners are engaged early, before architectural design begins, we help shape the brief, define the schedule of accommodation, and align spatial requirements with clinical strategy.
This early input ensures that the building supports actual service delivery, not just theoretical models. It also reduces the risk of costly redesigns, underutilised space, and operational inefficiencies.
We work closely with clinical stakeholders, estates teams, and transformation leads to map out how services will interact, what adjacencies are critical, and how the patient journey will unfold. This isn’t just about drawing plans, it’s about designing systems.
Supporting NHS transformation goals
Healthcare planning directly supports NHS priorities around integrated care, community-based services, and digital transformation. Whether it’s co-locating diagnostics with primary care, enabling remote consultations, or designing for multidisciplinary working, planners help translate policy into physical reality.
We also consider the less visible, but equally critical elements of estate design: staff welfare spaces, storage, dirty utilities, and circulation zones. These are often the first to be compromised in a tight footprint, but they’re essential to safe, efficient operations.
Flexibility is a mindset
Ultimately, designing for flexibility is about more than room sizes or layouts, it’s about mindset. It’s about asking:
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Can this space support more than one function?
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Can it evolve as services change?
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Can it be reconfigured without major capital investment?
If the answer is yes, then you’re building an NHS estate that’s ready for the future.
Healthcare planning is a strategic enabler of NHS transformation. It ensures that estates are not only clinically safe and operationally efficient, but also agile enough to support the next generation of care. If we want an NHS that’s flexible, resilient, and patient-centred, we need to start with how we plan the spaces it operates in.
Want to know more?
Download our guide to learn how healthcare planning works and how to apply it to your next project. The guide includes practical steps, design principles, and examples from across the system.
