The NHS Alliance Autumn Conference: Turning ambition into action

08:00Breakfast session

• Turning data into action: better decisions, better partnerships, better outcomes (Supported by IQVIA)

  📍 Edward Suite 1-3
  
  As the NHS moves towards greater devolution, neighbourhood health, strategic commissioning and provider-led transformation, leaders must decide how data, evidence and innovation can support both today's operational priorities and longer-term population health ambitions.
  
  This session will explore where the value of NHS data sits across local, regional and national levels, and how systems can use it to strengthen decision-making, accelerate research and innovation, and build more productive partnerships with the life sciences and MedTech industry. It will also address the risk that concentrating capability within major regions or leading trusts could exacerbate existing inequalities, leaving smaller providers, neighbourhoods and patient populations behind.

  • Speaker

    Andy Haywood

09:00Refreshments, networking and exhibition | 📍 Exhibition Hall

09:15Opening remarks

• Opening address

  📍 Victoria Suite
  
  More information to follow in due course.

  • Speaker

    Sarah Walter

09:25Keynote

• Keynote address

  📍 Victoria Suite
  
  More information to follow in due course.

10:00Plenary

• Rewiring a healthier state

  📍 Victoria Suite
  
  The Rewiring the State Cabinet statement, published this July, could not be clearer – for this prime minister and government it is very much devolution by default. Economic growth, democratic accountability and better public service delivery will all happen together and closer to our communities, with the political system we have long known upturned to enable this. Westminster’s job will be to empower, support, and listen to local leaders – not the other way round.
  
  As the country's largest and most centralised public service, and one with the word 'national' in its title, this feels particularly challenging. As the end state for a more devolved country becomes clearer, our role in it needs to take shape in ways which align with the direction of travel and ensure we can deliver for communities. Decisions which determine our future are being made today.
  
  This panel session will hear from leaders within and outside the NHS who are across this agenda. It will provoke debate and ask some of the critical questions such as:

  • What does greater democratic accountability look like for the NHS?
  • How do we better integrate our policy, funding and outcome measures with other public services?
  • Are we on the right track to play our part or do we risk being outsiders?
  • What skills will NHS leaders require to influence this agenda?

  • Speaker

    Alex Dewsnap

  • Speaker

    Jason Stamp

10:40Keynote

• Address from Lord Victor Adebowale CBE

  📍 Victoria Suite
  
  More information to follow in due course.

  • Speaker

    Lord Victor Adebowale CBE

11:00Refreshments, networking and exhibition | 📍 Exhibition Hall

11:30Breakout sessions

• Changing roles, shared goals: the future of acute and commissioner partnership working

  📍 Victoria Suite
  
  Shifting health spending into the community and moving care closer to home is key to making our health and care system fit for the future.
  
  ICBs are taking on a different role as strategic commissioners, focusing their capabilities and resources on improving population health through planning, purchasing, monitoring and evaluating services, rather than being involved in day-to-day operational management. On the other hand, new provider models and contractual models are emerging, with providers taking on more responsibility for pathway redesign and population health management.
    
  Shifting funding out of acute hospitals in a sustainable way and building a new model of care that incentivises upstream intervention and improved outcomes, not just more activity, will require tough trade-offs, difficult conversations and strengthened trust and honesty between partners. 

  This session will explore how we strengthen relationships between commissioners and acute providers in the context of strategic commissioning and as the provider architecture is evolving. 

  • Speaker

    Mike Bell

• From research to routine: delivering frontline innovation

  📍 Edward Suite 1-3
  
  More information to follow in due course. 

• IHO's: Who holds the risk, who holds the power, and who holds the patient? (Supported by Boehringer Ingelheim)

  📍 Edward Suite 4-6
  
  More information to follow in due course.

12:30Lunch, networking and exhibition | 📍 Exhibition Hall

13:30Keynote

• Address from Sir Jim Mackey

  📍 Victoria Suite
  
  More information to follow in due course.

  • Speaker

    Sir Jim Mackey

14:15Breakout sessions

• Neighbourhood health: how does tomorrow come to the aid of today?

  📍 Victoria Suite
  
  Health and care leaders are operating in a period of unprecedented pressure. Rising demand, growing complexity of need, workforce challenges and financial constraints continue to dominate day-to-day decision-making. Yet there is broad consensus that many of these challenges cannot be solved through short-term measures alone.
  
  Neighbourhood health offers a vision for a more preventative, person-centred and sustainable model of care, built around communities, multidisciplinary teams and strong partnerships between health, local government and the voluntary sector. However, a fundamental question remains: how can leaders invest in tomorrow solutions while managing today's realities?
  
  This session will explore how neighbourhood health can help address current system pressures and support more coordinated care closer to home. Panellists will discuss what conditions are needed to move beyond pilot initiatives and scale neighbourhood approaches as a core component of NHS reform.

  • Speaker

    Mustafa Malik

• Reframing the productivity challenge: how can leaders create the conditions for improvement?

  📍 Edward Suite 4-6
  
  Improving productivity remains one of the service's most pressing challenges: has the time come to rethink how it defines and delivers productivity gains?
  
  This session will explore the conditions needed to support sustainable productivity growth and what leaders can realistically do within their own organisations to maximise existing opportunities. The discussion will examine how investment in areas such as workforce, digital and AI, capital and estates, and collaboration with partners can help create the foundations for lasting improvement, while asking whether the NHS should move beyond traditional productivity measures and focus instead on the outcomes that matter most to patients, staff and communities.

  • Speaker

    Penny Pereira

  • Speaker

    Tera Allas

• Work, health and youth: the next chapter?

  📍 Albert Suite
  
  We are at a pivotal moment as the NHS steps up to help reduce youth unemployment.
  
  This session will explore what the growing focus on youth employment can learn from the NHS' experience with work and health: from integrating health and employment support to building stronger local partnerships and harnessing the NHS' role as an employer and anchor institution.

  • Speaker

    Adam Memon

  • Speaker

    Sarah Morgan

15:15Refreshments, networking and exhibition | 📍 Exhibition Hall

15:45Plenary

• Stories of courage and lessons on leadership

  📍 Victoria Suite
  
  In increasingly complex and contested environments, leadership is not simply about having the answers. It is about navigating difficult situations where values, relationships, competing priorities and uncertainty collide.
  
  Through candid stories from senior leaders, this session will explore how moral courage helps leaders challenge the status quo, address inequities, speak up when it matters, and learn from the moments when they did not. Speakers will reflect on times they acted, times they stayed silent, what was at stake, what they learned, and how those experiences shaped their leadership.

  • Chair

    Sarah Walter

  • Speaker

    Jason Killens

  • Speaker

    Lena Samuels

16:30Closing remarks | 📍 Victoria Suite