The Healthy Homes Hub Summer Ideas Exchange
About this Event
Join us for the Healthy Homes Hub Summer Exchange
Date Friday 19th June, 2026
Time: 10.00 AM, for 10.30 AM start, with refreshments and networking until 6:30PM
Location: Amazon's Head Office, London
Cost: FREE and Exclusive to Healthy Home Hub Members (All Housing Providers are FREE members of the Healthy Homes Hub)
The Healthy Homes Hub Summer Ideas Exchange is a dynamic, magazine-style day bringing together housing professionals, academics, health leaders and industry experts to explore the latest innovations and evidence in creating healthier homes.
Expect short, sharp sessions: thought-provoking discussions, real-world case studies and cross-sector insights that spotlight best practice and breakthrough ideas at the intersection of housing, health and sustainability.
From smarter resident engagement and digital health tools, to lessons from academic research and frontline practice, the Summer Ideas Exchange is a space to share knowledge, collaborate and spark practical solutions. Packed with actionable takeaways and time to connect, the day is designed to reimagine how homes can better support health and wellbeing - now and for the future.
What you’ll get:
- Learn from leading experts and practitioners
- Hear lived experiences on housing’s impact on health and community
- Discover practical ways to create modern, efficient, healthier homes
- Explore technology shaping the future of housing
- Network and collaborate with like-minded professionals and organisations
We’ll close with networking drinks - a chance to connect, reflect and build partnerships that move the healthy homes agenda forward.
Join us as we work to #MakeHousingBetter!
Agenda
10:00 - 10:40 Arrival and networking
10:40 - 11:00 We begin the day with a powerful personal story from someone with lived experience of social housing.
11:10 - 12:10 Breakout sessions:
A. Safety, compliance and the Housing Health and Safety Rating System
Speaker: Ryan Dempsey, TCW
B. Beyond the front foor: embedding neighbourhood climate resilience into retrofit
Speakers: Richard Flemmings, Map Impact and Rick Thompson, ODC
Retrofit has traditionally focused on the fabric of individual homes, but climate resilience requires us to look beyond the front door. Heat, flooding, green infrastructure, and the wider urban environment all play a critical role in shaping how homes perform and how residents experience them.
This session will explore how housing providers can use geospatial data to better understand climate risks and make more informed decisions about homes, neighbourhoods, and investment priorities. It will include an introduction to the role of mapping and place-based data in housing, highlighting how these tools can support healthier homes and stronger climate resilience. It will also feature a case study from Regenda Homes, sharing how the organisation is using geospatial analysis to understand heat risk across its homes and communities.
C. The Plymouth Living Lab: codesigning digital health with residents
Panel includes: Dr. Kieran Green and Prof Sheena Asthana, University of Plymouth and Rachael Fox, Livewell SW
The Plymouth Living Lab is an innovative partnership between Plymouth Community Homes and the University of Plymouth’s Centre for Health Technology. At its heart, the Lab is about testing digital health technologies with and for the people who need them most — social housing residents often living with the greatest health inequalities. This session will explore:
- Co-design and engagement: how academics, health professionals, and residents have come together to shape trials, ensuring technology is empowering rather than imposed.
- Pilots in practice: early findings from two digital tools — Community Connections (tackling loneliness and building social networks) and behavioural sensors (detecting unusual patterns in the home and alerting carers/families to risks).
- Agency and empowerment: why this matters — for residents managing chronic conditions, for housing providers shaping services, and for tech developers designing solutions with people rather than for them.
12:20 - 1:15 Modernising Critical Services: Lessons from HM Passport’s Digital Transformation
Speaker: Stacey Jarrett, AWS
Over eight years, HM Passport Office transformed one of the UK’s most critical public services while continuing to process millions of passport applications without interruption. AWS will share key lessons from that journey, including how to modernise legacy systems, build in-house capability, and design for resilience by identifying and addressing failure points early.
1:15 - 2:00 Lunch with networking and refreshments
2:00 - 3:00 Breakout sessions:
A. Making data work harder - from sensors to smarter decisions
Panel includes Eilidh Hughes, DESNZ and Barry Lynham, Knauf Energy
This session explores what’s stopping us from turning data into better decisions. Moving beyond temperature and humidity, we’ll look at how emerging approaches, such as Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) measurement and smarter use of metering data, can unlock a more accurate understanding of how homes actually perform.
We’ll discuss how better data could transform everything from prioritising retrofit works to improving financial models, reducing risk, and even offering residents clearer insights into their energy costs.
B. A roundtable on data, responsibility and readiness
Speakers: Mike Craggs and Keiran Poynton, Bromford Flagship
We often say we are data led, focused on insight, early warning, and prevention. Yet the use of sensor data across social housing remains limited.
This roundtable explores a simple but uncomfortable question: why?
Is it tenant trust and consent?
Uncertainty about the benefits?
A lack of mandate or regulation?
Perhaps this isn’t about technology at all, but organisational readiness. This is not a sales pitch or a search for a neat answer. It’s an honest conversation about whether we’re ready to manage risk in people’s homes, not just on paper – and what that means for healthier homes.
C. Lessons from real homes: the health impacts of retrofit in practice
Speaker: Dr Tiffany Yang, Research Programme Director, Bradford Institute for Health Research
This session shares early insights from a major NIHR-funded study led by the Born in Bradford programme, tracking over 400 social homes before and after energy efficiency upgrades. Combining real-time monitoring with resident feedback, the research explores how changes to insulation, heating, and ventilation impact indoor air quality, temperature, humidity, and ultimately, health outcomes.
Drawing on the first winter’s data, Dr Tiffany Yang will present emerging trends across different building types and households, alongside early insights into how residents are experiencing these changes.
3:15 - 4:15 Closing keynote: overheating, Net Zero and health inquality - learnings from HEARTH
Speaker: Dr Rajat Gupta, Director of HEARTH, Oxford Brookes University
This keynote explores the work of HEARTH, a transdisciplinary programme examining how homes can adapt to extreme heat while still meeting Net Zero goals. Vulnerable residents are often least able to adapt, unable to improve ventilation, add shading, or leave overheated homes, increasing health inequalities.
HEARTH brings together climate science, building engineering, health, and social research to understand overheating risk from region to room. Through climate modelling, occupant surveys, and health impact analysis, it examines which mitigation strategies, from shading and ventilation to nature-based solutions and cool materials, deliver the greatest benefit.
4:30 - 6:30 Networking Drinks
Venue: Camino, 2 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3BL (2 mins walk from Amazon HQ).
Attendance is FREE as part of Healthy Homes Hub membership.
Places are limited to 120.
To learn more about becoming a Healthy Homes Hub member, contact: [email protected]
Agenda
🕑: 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Arrival, Coffee, and Networking
🕑: 10:30 AM - 10:40 AM
Welcome and Introduction
Host: Andrew Cameron Smith, Healthy Homes Hub
🕑: 10:40 AM - 11:00 AM
Lived Experience of an Unhealthy Home
Host: Maria McCafferty
Info: We begin the day with a powerful personal story. Maria shares her experiences.
🕑: 11:00 AM - 11:10 AM
Grab a drink and move to break outs
🕑: 11:10 AM - 12:10 PM
Safety & Compliance
Host: Ryan Dempsey, TCW
Info: In recent years, safety in social housing has risen sharply up the agenda, driven by new regulation, increased scrutiny, and rapid growth in data and technology solutions. But with more tools, more data, and more pressure: are we actually improving safety outcomes, or simply increasing complexity?
This session will offer a fresh perspective on balancing innovation with simplicity, and how to ensure safety strategies deliver real-world impact for residents.
🕑: 11:10 AM - 12:10 PM
GeoSpacial – Beyond the Front Door: Embedding Neighbourhood Climate Resilience
Host: Richard Flemmings, Map Impact
Info: Retrofit has traditionally focused on the fabric of individual homes, but climate resilience requires us to look beyond the front door. Heat, flooding, green infrastructure, and the wider urban environment all play a critical role in shaping how homes perform and how residents experience them.
This session will explore how housing providers can use geospatial data to better understand climate risks and make more informed decisions about homes, neighbourhoods, and investment priorities. It will include an introduction to the role of mapping and place-based data in housing, highlighting how these tools can support healthier homes and stronger climate resilience. It will also feature a case study from Regenda Homes, sharing how the organisation is using geospatial analysis to understand heat risk across its homes and communities.
🕑: 11:10 AM - 12:10 PM
The Plymouth Living Lab: Co-Designing Digital Health with Residents
Host: Dr. Kieran Green, Plymouth Community Homes
Info: The Plymouth Living Lab is an innovative partnership between Plymouth Community Homes and the University of Plymouth’s Centre for Health Technology. At its heart, the Lab is about testing digital health technologies with and for the people who need them most — social housing residents often living with the greatest health inequalities. This session will explore:
Co-design and engagement: how academics, health professionals, and residents have come together to shape trials, ensuring technology is empowering rather than imposed.
Pilots in practice: early findings from two digital tools — Community Connections (tackling loneliness and building social networks) and behavioural sensors (detecting unusual patterns in the home and alerting carers/families to risks).
Agency and empowerment: why this matters — for residents managing chronic conditions, for housing providers shaping services, and for tech developers designing solutions with people rather than for them.
🕑: 12:10 PM - 12:20 PM
Move to main room
🕑: 12:20 PM - 01:15 PM
Modernising Critical Services: Lessons from HM Passport’s Digital Transformati
Host: Stacey Jarrett, AWS
Info: Over eight years, HM Passport Office transformed one of the UK’s most critical public services while continuing to process millions of passport applications without interruption. In this session, Amazon Web Services will share key lessons from this journey, including how to modernise legacy systems, build in-house capability, and design for resilience by identifying and addressing failure points early.
🕑: 01:15 PM - 02:00 PM
Lunch
🕑: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Making data work harder - from sensors to smarter decisions
Host: Barry Lynham, Knauf Energy Solutions
Info: Social housing providers now have access to more data than ever from sensors, smart meters, and building performance tools, but much of it remains underused.
This session explores what’s stopping us from turning data into better decisions. Moving beyond temperature and humidity, we’ll look at how emerging approaches, such as Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) measurement and smarter use of metering data, can unlock a more accurate understanding of how homes actually perform.
We’ll discuss how better data could transform everything from prioritising retrofit works to improving financial models, reducing risk, and even offering residents clearer insights into their energy costs.
This isn’t about new technology, it’s about making better use of what we already have.
🕑: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Lessons from real homes: the health impacts of retrofit in practice
Host: Dr Tiffany Yang, Bradford Institute for Health Research
Info: This session shares early insights from a major NIHR-funded study led by the Born in Bradford programme, tracking over 400 social homes before and after energy efficiency upgrades. Combining real-time monitoring with resident feedback, the research explores how changes to insulation, heating, and ventilation impact indoor air quality, temperature, humidity, and ultimately, health outcomes.
Drawing on the first winter’s data, Dr Tiffany Yang will present emerging trends across different building types and households, alongside early insights into how residents are experiencing these changes.
🕑: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
A showcase on data, responsibility, and readiness
Host: Mike Craggs, Bromford Flagship
Info: We often say we are data led, focused on insight, early warning, and prevention. Yet the use of sensor data across social housing remains limited.
This roundtable explores a simple but uncomfortable question: why?
Is it tenant trust and consent?
Uncertainty about the benefits?
A lack of mandate or regulation?
Upfront costs, or the bigger challenge that follows – knowing what’s happening inside homes and being expected to act?
Sensor data can surface risks early: damp, poor ventilation, overheating, cold, and slow-building patterns long before a complaint is made. That knowledge shifts responsibility from “we didn’t know” to “we did know – so what did we do?”
Perhaps this isn’t about technology at all, but organisational readiness. Moving from reactive services to prevention. From valuing data in theory to letting it genuinely drive decisions, priorities, and investment.
🕑: 03:15 PM - 04:15 PM
Keynote: Overheating, Net Zero and Health Inequality: Learning from HEARTH
Host: Professor Rajat Gupta, Oxford Brookes University
Info: During the summer of 2022, over 3,000 excess deaths occurred in England and Wales, with significant increases during heat periods across homes, care settings, and hospitals. As extreme heat becomes more frequent, overheating is emerging as a major and unequal housing and health risk.
This keynote explores the work of HEARTH, a transdisciplinary programme examining how homes can adapt to extreme heat while still meeting Net Zero goals. Vulnerable residents are often least able to adapt, unable to improve ventilation, add shading, or leave overheated homes, increasing health inequalities.
HEARTH brings together climate science, building engineering, health, and social research to understand overheating risk from region to room. Through climate modelling, occupant surveys, and health impact analysis, it examines which mitigation strategies, from shading and ventilation to nature-based solutions and cool materials, deliver the greatest benefit.
🕑: 04:15 PM - 04:30 PM
Close followed by Networking Drinks
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 0.00
