Where does the human experience fit in Hospital 2.0?

The government’s £37bn New Hospital Programme (NHP) is one of the UK’s most ambitious infrastructure programmes, aiming to create a new generation of state-of-the-art hospitals through successive five-year waves. With contractors now appointed to the first tranche of projects, delivery is beginning to accelerate.

At the heart of the programme sits Hospital 2.0: a model built around up to 80% standardisation to improve speed, cost efficiency, and quality across the NHS estate. But as momentum grows, an important question is coming into focus: where does the human experience sit within this system?

For us at Perkins&Will, the answer is not hidden in what has been standardised – but in the remaining 20%. This is not leftover space or architectural decoration. It is where hospitals become places that people can understand, navigate, and feel comfortable in – and with a human-centred design approach to these spaces, we can demonstrate that standardisation and individuality are not in conflict, rather, they strengthen one another.

At the James Paget University Hospital, where Perkins&Will is design lead, we are not simply applying the NHP blueprint, we are helping shape it, working closely with the client and the wider project team to embed our Living Design Philosophy within the Hospital 2.0 framework. This approach places human experience, well-being and long-term adaptability at the centre of design.

Through research developed within Perkins&Will’s innovation incubator program, my colleagues Valentina Chisci and Justin Starck explored how spaces outside the standardised framework can give hospitals identity and meaning. These include concourse, gardens, forecourt, waiting areas, bedroom interiors, and staff support zones. Individually, they may appear secondary. Collectively, they become something much more important: the emotional and social infrastructure of the hospital.

Hospitals are experienced through movement and memory. Everyone who interacts with one follows a version of the same journey, from home, through arrival and navigation, to a destination, and eventually back again. While the reasons for travel vary, the needs often do not.

Using a combination of data-driven analysis and experiential design research, we mapped the hospital journey from “home to home,” identifying common emotional needs shared by patients, visitors, and staff, such as clarity, comfort, belonging, and ease.

Hospitals are experienced through movement and memory. Everyone who interacts with one follows a version of the same journey, from home, through arrival and navigation, to a destination, and eventually back again

For patients in particular, the experience begins well before they arrive. Understanding what to expect, knowing where to go and feeling prepared all shape what happens when they enter the building. Once on site, the focus shifts to practical needs such as intuitive wayfinding, accessible parking, and welcoming entry points.

By combining movement data, capacity analysis, and behavioural insight into how people feel in these spaces, including stress, pace, and crowding, design decisions can move beyond efficiency alone. It allows the flexibility within the Hospital 2.0 model to be used more intentionally and effectively.

Reception offers one example. Rather than treating arrival as a transactional checkpoint, we can draw from hospitality principles and create environments that feel calm, legible and reassuring from the moment people enter.

Across the broader journey, lighting, materials, colour, acoustics, and technology can all support different emotional states, reducing uncertainty, helping orientation, and creating a greater sense of comfort. Technology also has a role to play. Borrowing from leading consumer brands, digital tools such as app-based check-in, real-time wayfinding, and personalised updates can reduce uncertainty and waiting times.

Finally, hospitals can feel more connected to their communities by integrating local services and businesses at their edges, softening the boundary between hospital and neighbourhood.

Through this human-centred design approach we can reframe the 80:20 principle. The 80% delivers robustness, speed, and value for money, but the 20% is where trust is built, anxiety is reduced, staff is supported, and communities are welcomed in. The 20% is where standardised hospitals become places people recognise, navigate intuitively, and feel cared for within.

As the NHP reshapes the NHS estate, success will not be judged on delivery alone, but on how these hospitals serve the people who use them every day—and how people feel within them. The “human 20%” must therefore be treated with the same discipline and focus as the standardised model itself. Ultimately, that is what will define whether Hospital 2.0 delivers on its promise.

Gonzalo Vargas del Carpio is healthcare practice lead at architect Perkins&Will