Upcoming Workshop

2026 EuHPN Workshop

Standardising the Health Estate: Benefits, Boundaries and Risks

Main Programme 21-22 September; Study Tours 23 September

Dublin, Ireland

Standardising the Health Estate: Benefits, Boundaries and Risks

As health systems look to control costs, improve patient outcomes, ensure resilience and contribute to sustainability goals, attention increasingly turns to the option of standardising different components of the health estate.  In broad terms, this means making the infrastructure more uniform and consistent – avoiding unnecessary variation and locking in best practice. 

While standardisation can undoubtedly offer some benefits, it is also subject to boundaries and risks. Standardisation also gives rise to questions about the mechanisms for creating, maintaining and using standards and guidelines for healthcare facilities, and how to learn from international comparisons. Finally, we should not ignore the specific issues that arise from utilizing and optimizing the existing, legacy estate.

Main programme, 21-22 September

The 2026 EuHPN workshop’s main programme will explore some key domains of standardisation in the following sessions:

Benefits.  Can standardisation of the estate make health services more efficient and productive services?  Can it lead to better and more predictable clinical outcomes, improved staff satisfaction, reductions in energy use and waste, and lower costs associated with planning, design, construction and maintenance?  If so, how will it achieve this?

Boundaries.  Does standardisation apply to general or specific levels of health facility design and construction?  In other words, should it focus on departmental layout and general arrangement of clinical and non-clinical spaces, or should it also include much more granular design choices, down to the details of finishings, room fixtures and equipment choice?  

Risks and Impacts.  Could additional standardisation lead to loss of capacity for innovation and flexibility, inability to respond to local contexts, and failure to account for future health system needs?  Or could it give healthcare organisations freedom to innovate and to build in more future flexibility?  How can we mitigate the risks and balance the pros and cons?

 Standards and guidance.  In a more standardised health estate, what will be the future role of standards and guidance documents?  Should they migrate to being more or less prescriptive?  And who will or should produce them?

 Utilisation and optimisation of the existing estate.  How can we make the most effective use of existing land, buildings and equipment to meet modern standards for clinically excellent, patient focused, sustainable healthcare environments?

 International comparisons.  Can we find examples of success, or reasons for caution, from comparisons between standardisation of the estate, or optimising the use of existing facilities, in different countries?

Our speakers and facilitators

This year we welcome an amazing range of expert speakers and facilitators, drawn from professional backgrounds in health facility planning, design, engineering and construction, healthcare infrastructure financing, facilities management, clinical science and academic research.  They represent public and private sector organisations from countries and health systems across Europe and beyond.  As ever at EuHPN events, our speakers and facilitators aim to inform, challenge and engage with our audience. 

 You will find more information about the speakers and facilitators, and the topics they will address, in the draft workshop programme.

Our supporters

 In 2026 we are delighted to have the support of the Health Service Executive, Ireland. 

More about EuHPN workshops

The EuHPN annual workshop is not an academic conference, and it is not a commercial event.  It is a meeting place for professionals working in healthcare infrastructure development, with a range of different backgrounds in facility design, construction and management, healthcare engineering, project management, infrastructure financing, academic research and R&D.  The overall aim of each workshop is to share knowledge and learn about best practice and the latest thinking in the field.  Our speakers and our audience reflect this eclectic mix, and represent many different types of organisation from the public and private sectors.

The workshop’s location changes from year to year, with recent events being held in Oslo (2025), Barcelona (2024) and Copenhagen (2023).  You can view the presentations from these events here.  In 2026 we are delighted to be in Dublin, at the iconic Thomas Prior Hall, in the Ballsbridge area of the city.  The workshop is being organised with the collaboration and support of the Health Service Executive (Ireland’s public health and social care service), the EuHPN board and our network member organisations.

The workshop’s main programme takes place over two days, with a mix of keynote speakers and thematically arranged presentations.  With audience numbers capped at around 100 attendees, there are ample opportunities for interactive discussions.  These often continue outside the hours of the formal programme, at the workshop dinner or at other social opportunities.  Our workshops attract sponsorship from a small number of supporting organisations, and we encourage their representatives to take a full and active role in contributing to the workshop’s learning aims.

On the third day of the workshop we organise optional study tours of health facilities in the local area, aiming to showcase some practical examples of innovation and excellence.

Spread the word!

EuHPN workshops are multinational, multi-professional, and a great way to learn about the latest in healthcare infrastructure development.  We would love to hear your proposal for a presentation, and you should feel free to encourage your colleagues and contacts to do the same.

Draft Outline Programme: 21 - 23 September 2026

Thomas Prior Hall, Dublin

Monday 21st September

08.00 – 08.45  Registration.

08.45 – 09.00  Welcome to Dublin and Ireland.                                                 

09.00 – 09.30  Keynote address. Speaker to be confirmed.

09.30 – 11.00  Session 1: Benefits

Session outline:  Speakers from Norway, Netherlands, Spain and France.

Lessons from hospitals and other healthcare facilities, on standardisation in planning, design and clinical optimization, including modular and industrialised approaches to construction and fittings.

11.00 – 11.30  Coffee break

11.30 – 13.00  Session 2: Boundaries

Session outline: Speakers from Sweden, Netherlands and the UK.

Presentations on the limits of standardisation and the healthcare sectors that may benefit most.  Bottom up versus top-down creation of common standards.  How data can help us to do more with less.

13.00 – 14.00  Lunch

14.00 – 15.30  Session 3: Risks and Impacts

Session outline: Speakers from Spain, England, Ireland and Scotland.

How to reduce the risks associated with standardisation and avoid unintended consequences.  Compliance with health & safety standards.  The potential for standardisation outside the hospital – in community and wellbeing centres. 

15.30 – 16.00  Coffee break

16.00 – 17.15  Facilitator-led discussion and/or other guest speaker(s), to be announced.

19.30 – 22.00     The 2026 EuHPN Workshop Dinner.  Venue to be announced. 

Your opportunity to network with an international gathering of healthcare infrastructure professionals.

Tuesday 22nd September

09.00 – 09.30  Keynote address. Speaker to be confirmed.

09.30 – 11.00  Session 4: Standards and Guidelines

Session outline: Speakers from Norway, Sweden, Belgium, UK

How standards and guidelines can accommodate the principles of standardisation – lessons from case studies around Europe.  Finding common cause across national boundaries.  How to ensure that standards documents and guidelines are kept up to date and relevant.

11.00 – 11.30  Coffee break

11.30 – 13.00  Session 5: Utilisation and Optimisation of the Existing Estate

Session outline: Speakers from Scotland, Spain and UK/international.

Bringing new life to primary and community care facilities.  How renovation can drive sustainable healthcare infrastructure.  Transforming the ageing and legacy estate into infrastructure fit for the future.  Using data to optimise the existing estate.

13.00 – 14.00  Lunch

14.00 – 15.30  Session 6: International Comparisons

Session outline:  Speakers from Poland, Australia, UK/Peru, International.

Innovative procurement to drive standardisation.  Modularising the estate: the good, the bad and the ugly.  Design and construction for resilience and extreme scenarios.  Balancing international best practice with local contexts.

15.30 – 16.00  Coffee break

16.00 – 17.15  Facilitator-led discussion and/or other guest speaker(s), to be announced.

17.15 – 17.30  Closing remarks

Study Tour Schedule

The 2026 EuHPN study tour will feature a comprehensive visit to the New Children’s Hospital, the landmark, soon-to-be-completed paediatric hospital that brings together services from three existing children’s hospitals.  This is a modern, digitally-enabled, custom-designed campus, which aims to provide the best possible care and treatments to Ireland’s children and young people.

The details of the tour of the New Children’s Hospital are still being finalised, but we will most likely depart from the Thomas Prior Hall at 09.00 on Wednesday 23rd September.  Coaches will be provided for travel to the New Children’s Hospital site, to begin a two hour tour from 10.00.  Participants will be able to bring luggage, stored on the coach transport, for later transfer to Dublin airport.

The Children’s Hospital tour should be able to accommodate everyone who would like to attend.  Participants will be organised into small groups, each of which will experience the whole tour but according to different routes.  On the date of the tour, the Children’s Hospital will not have patients or members of the public present, but it will be an active working environment for staff, so participants will be expected to keep to the agreed itinerary at all times. 

After the New Children’s Hospital tour, we are currently planning to offer a light lunch and then onward travel to a choice of additional study sites.  We anticipate that these will include some or all of the following:

·       The Rotunda Maternity Hospital’s new department at Hampson House, which includes maternity outpatients, paediatric outpatients, colposcopy and allied health services..

·       The new National Forensic Mental Health Service (NFMHS) Facility - a modern, secure, purpose-built complex that is compliant with all relevant healthcare standards.

·       One of Ireland’s new surgical hubs, intended to improve access to elective care, and procured according to a standardised brief and design.

The afternoon tours may have limitations on the numbers of participants, due to the sensitivities of visiting some sites and the clinical environment.  For participants who register an interest in the afternoon tours, we will try to accommodate preferences, but we may have to offer these tours in order of registration.

The Children’s Hospital tour should finish around 12.00, and there will be an opportunity for some participants to leave at that stage if they have onward travel.  Other participants can remain for the available afternoon tour(s), which will finish at 15.30, and we may be able to offer coach drop off at Dublin airport (16.00) and Dublin city centre.

The tour programme is still in development, but will be confirmed as soon as possible. 

 Venue

Thomas Prior Hall

The 2026 EuHPN workshop will be hosted at Thomas Prior Hall, a historic 19th-century venue located in the heart of Ballsbridge, Dublin.

Rich in history and character, Thomas Prior Hall provides a distinctive setting for the conference while offering convenient access for delegates. The venue is located in Dublin 4, just a one-minute walk from the RDS arena, a 10-minute walk from the Aviva Stadium, and approximately 20-25 minutes from Dublin city centre by public transport or taxi services.

An adjacent hotel connects directly to the venue, and a range of public transport options make it easy to access accommodation across the city.

We look forward to welcoming participants to Dublin for the 2026 EuHPN workshop.

Accommodation

The adjacent Clayton hotel (Ballsbridge) connects directly to the venue, but there are plenty of public transport options that would allow participants to choose other locations for hotel accommodation. We cannot directly recommend any specific hotel options, but on registration we will supply a discount code for the Clayton hotel, which is conveniently located next to the workshop venue. We will also provide some suggestions for other accommodation options near the venue and in the city centre.