Healthcare Estates 2026, the annual conference and exhibition of the Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management (IHEEM), takes place on 13–14 October 2026 at Manchester Central.
Healthcare Estates is the UK's principal event for everyone responsible for the healthcare built environment — estates and facilities directors and managers, healthcare engineers, authorising engineers, architects and designers, infection prevention and control leads, sustainability and net zero managers, capital projects teams, and the suppliers and consultants who serve them. The organisers position the event as providing informative content to help attendees meet the challenges of their role, and the programme is written directly against those operational pressures.
The conference programme runs across multiple streams over the two days. Typical content covers the decarbonisation of healthcare estates and progress toward net zero, backlog maintenance and capital investment strategy, ventilation and water safety including HTM compliance, electrical resilience and critical infrastructure, medical gas systems, fire safety, decontamination, digital estates and building management systems, and the design of new hospital facilities. Sessions consistently combine national policy context with case studies from trusts that have delivered the work.
The exhibition floor is large and technical, presenting building services, engineering systems, compliance services, modular construction, medical gas and ventilation equipment, and specialist healthcare interiors and infrastructure. The 2026 full programme is published online with an interactive version allowing delegates to search and bookmark sessions in advance.
Structured networking is a deliberate feature: organised networking receptions at the end of each day give delegates and speakers an unpressured setting to compare approaches to shared problems, and the IHEEM Awards dinner recognises achievement across the sector.
Registration, the exhibitor list and the full agenda are published on the official Healthcare Estates website.
