The Healthy Homes Hub Winter Ideas Exchange 2026

Join us for the Healthy Homes Hub Winter Ideas Exchange

Date: Thursday 3rd December, 2026

Time: 10:00, for 10:30 start to 16:30, with networking drinks from 16:30 until 18:30

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 Winter 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 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. 

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. 

Register to attend here.

What will you get:

This event is designed to equip attendees with actionable insights and practical knowledge to drive meaningful improvements in housing and health.

Event agenda

10:00 - Arrive, coffee and networking 

10:30 - Welcome and introduction 

10:40 - We begin the day with a powerful personal story from Sue Hodgson, Tenant Board Member and activist

11:10 - Choice of breakout sessions 

1. Furniture poverty 
   Claire Donovan, Director, End Furniture Poverty 
   

2. Radon 
   Mark Wood, National Specification Manager, AICO 
   Anthony Ball, Advanced Public Health Practitioner, Cornwall Council 
   

3. Resident engagement – Knowledge Transfer Network project with Together Housing 
   Professor Phil Brown, Professor of Housing and Communities, University of Huddersfield 

12:20 Lunch plenary with Dr Swann and Dr Whitehouse
Dr Olivia Swan, Wellcome Early Career Fellow and Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Disease 
Dr Abi Whitehouse, Senior Clinical Lecturer in Children's Environmental Health and Honorary Paediatric Respiratory Consultant 
Chair: Luke Hurd, CEO, CHIC 
For years, paediatricians have treated children with repeated respiratory infections and asthma, only to discharge them back to the very homes that may be making them ill. 

In this lunchtime plenary, Dr Olivia Swann shares how that realisation prompted an ambitious five-year research programme that is changing how we think about the relationship between housing and health. 

Combining her experience as both a children’s doctor and a data scientist, Livvy is leading one of the UK’s most ambitious linked data projects, bringing together healthcare records, housing information, energy performance, retrofit data, smart meter information, outdoor air pollution and other datasets across Scotland. By linking children’s health records with the individual homes they have lived in, the project aims to answer questions that have never previously been possible. 
 
13:15 - Lunch - enjoy networking opportunities and refreshments 

14:00 - Choice of breakout sessions 

1. The Bad Building Challenge - what healthy homes can learn from getting it wrong 

   Aaron Gillich, Professor of Building Performance and Policy, South Bank University 
   This highly interactive session will invite delegates to think like building designers and tackle two very different briefs: creating the worst possible home for winter and the worst possible home for summer in Professor Aaron Gillich’s Bad Building Challenge. Through a lively discussion, delegates will explore the trade-offs involved in designing healthier homes that perform well all year round. 
    
   The session will then examine how housing providers can navigate an increasingly complex policy landscape. As expectations around damp, mould and overheating continue to evolve through Awaab's Law, alongside a changing climate, the challenge is no longer simply responding to problems as they arise, but making strategic decisions that prevent them in the first place. 
    

2. A minimum heat guarantee: could we prevent cold homes? 
   Bob Spedding, Director of Assets & Sustainability, Yorkshire Housing 
   Alex Wiley, Project Director Healthy Homes Hub 
   Dr Abi Whitehouse, Senior Clinical Lecturer in Children's Environmental Health and Honorary Paediatric Respiratory Consultant  
   Cold homes, fuel poverty and poor health are deeply interconnected but too often the response comes only once problems have emerged. What would it look like to intervene earlier, and make keeping residents safe and warm a fundamental part of how we manage homes? 
    
   This breakout will explore different approaches to moving from reaction to prevention. Alex Willey will introduce the Healthy Homes Hub’s Minimum Heat Guarantee, which is testing whether housing providers can identify homes at risk of unsafe temperatures and intervene to guarantee a minimum level of warmth. Bob Spedding will share a different approach being taken in Yorkshire, while Dr Abi Whitehouse will bring a clinical perspective on the relationship between housing conditions and respiratory health, drawing on the Hub’s work to develop asthma-friendly homes. 
    

3. Modernising Critical Services: Lessons from HM Passport’s Digital Transformation 
   Stacey Jarrett, AWS 
   Cat Walden, HM Passport Office, Home Office 
   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’s Stacey Jarrett 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. 

   
   For housing providers balancing day-to-day service delivery with large-scale change, this session offers practical insights into how data, technology, and strong partnerships can support transformation while keeping essential services running. 

15:15 - Closing keynote: co-developing a health-equity-centred engineering approach to home design 
Doug Booker, Principal Investigator, Hestia 
Chaired by: Stuart Smith, Commercial Director, Zehnder 

16:15 - Wrap up and close 

16:30 - 18:30 Networking Drinks
Connect with other attendees to exchange ideas and build relationships. 

Attendance is FREE as part of Healthy Homes Hub membership.

Places are limited to 100

Join us as we work to #MakeHousingBetter!

To learn more about becoming a Healthy Homes Hub member, contact: jenny@healthyhomeshub.uk