Rethinking healthcare delivery: the case for retail parks in easing NHS pressure
By Lauren Chew, senior asset manager at Redevco
Pressures on NHS services are well recognised and have prompted an important conversation about how care can be delivered more effectively, accessibly and closer to people’s daily lives. While demand continues to outpace traditional capacity, recent evidence shows that when primary care access is limited, patients often look elsewhere for support.
The Care Quality Commission’s State of Care report (October 2025) highlighted this system-wide impact, noting that 6.6% of respondents to the 2025 GP Patient Survey attended A&E because they were unable to contact their GP or were uncertain about next steps. Together, these insights underline the opportunity, and necessity, to innovate beyond conventional healthcare settings and rethink how and where services can best meet patient needs.
Herein lies a key opportunity: retail parks are already embedded in everyday life. With high footfall, strong transport links and often free parking, they are uniquely placed to support public health by meeting people where they already are – offering a level of accessibility that many traditional healthcare settings struggle to match.
Unlike clinical environments, which can feel formal or intimidating, retail parks are familiar and convenient spaces, making them ideal locations for healthcare initiatives, such as pop-up clinics and mobile health units, that can be accessed spontaneously without the traditional barriers that accompany NHS services.
Across Redevco’s recently acquired £518 million retail park portfolio, a series of successful healthcare initiatives has been delivered in partnership with the NHS over the past six months. These included an NHS vaccine bus deployed at West One Retail Park, Manchester in December 2025; a community health bus at Neatscourt Retail Park, Queenborough in October 2025; and a wellbeing stand at Pompey Centre, Portsmouth in October 2025 and again in January 2026, which supported individuals looking to stop smoking. At October’s Pompey Centre event alone, more than 30 conversations took place and over a dozen people signed up to the services on offer.
These initiatives highlight the nature of working with the NHS, which comprises a number of distinct trusts operating independently rather than as a single organisation. As a result, collaboration does not always follow a uniform national approach. Recognising this, there is a clear opportunity for investors and landlords to take a proactive role in building relationships and identifying ways to deliver social value through collaboration.
The success of our recent initiatives demonstrates what can be achieved when partnerships do come together and underscores our ambition to do more.
By enabling earlier intervention and preventative care, retail park-based healthcare can help reduce pressure on overstretched GP surgeries and hospitals. Such initiatives can also play a vital role in reaching underserved areas and those who face practical, cultural or psychological barriers to accessing care.
What makes this collaborative model particularly compelling is its scalability. Retail parks are already embedded within communities across the UK and offer flexible space that can accommodate a range of healthcare formats, from mobile units to seasonal campaigns targeting specific public health priorities.
So how do we maximise these benefits?
A proactive approach will be critical. Given the NHS is made up of multiple trusts operating independently, collaboration naturally requires engagement at a local level rather than through a single, standardised route. By investing time in building partnerships across these organisations, there is an opportunity to unlock this model more consistently and at greater scale. Partnerships between the NHS and retail parks can reveal significant latent potential, offering public healthcare in a visible, accessible way that is rooted in everyday life and meets people on their terms.
In recognition of World Health Day, it is important that investors and landlords across the real estate industry work closely with healthcare organisations to think creatively about how and where services can be delivered. Retail parks present an immediate and practical opportunity; bringing healthcare closer to where people already spend their time, supporting prevention, reducing stigma and ultimately contributing to healthier environments. With a proactive approach to collaboration, this model can continue to grow and deliver true long-term social value, and Redevco stands ready to continue making this a reality.