Why I’m hosting The Embedded Seminar

Despite considering it for a number of years, I’ve always resisted running an event.

There are already plenty of NHS conferences – they’re all well intentioned and most of them are informative. Adding another one didn’t feel necessary.

But over the last few years, I’ve worked inside NHS systems under real operational pressure while also advising pharmaceutical, medtech and device teams trying to navigate those same systems.

I keep seeing the same pattern and it has started to bother me. The intent is usually strong, the product solid and initial meetings go well. But then embedding stalls.

Not because anyone has acted in bad faith but because the proposal wasn’t designed for the operating environment it was entering.

Why strong products fail inside NHS operating reality

Industry discussions are often built around value and differentiation. Inside the NHS, decisions are filtered through workload, governance exposure, clinical risk and whether a pathway that is already fragile can absorb change.

In other words, we’re not talking about theoretical or philosophical differences. Decisions are shaped around genuine structural issues. If you don’t design for it, you will eventually feel it.

The Embedded Seminar on September 30 is an attempt to examine that properly.

What The Embedded Seminar will examine that others don’t

I’ve brought together people who sit directly inside those pressures.

Dr Sarah Bruen leads a GP-led organisation serving 260,000 patients. She operates across board governance, large scale service delivery and system level collaboration and previously chaired a CCG. She understands how commissioning pathways, transformation funding and accountability frameworks actually intersect.

David Thorne works across multi-neighbourhood primary care at scale. He sees how federated governance structures operate in practice and how collaboration works when it works and where it quietly fails.

Laura Norton runs a GP federation delivering NHS and non-NHS contracts in a challenging environment. Capacity isn’t an abstract concept for her; it shapes every decision she makes.

Kathryn Patrick is a Director of Primary Care and an NHS GP.She recognises the importance of better patient care and also better support of colleagues across the system. Her experience spanning both Primary Care and the Acute Trust has proved invaluable with supporting external stakeholders at world-leading pharmaceutical companies with consultancy work.

Samantha Bramley brings the industry side of the equation. Having led globally in life sciences and now working with executive teams, she sees how internal urgency, misalignment and behavioural signalling influence how NHS leaders interpret industry engagement.

I’ll draw together what I’ve learned from supporting more than 100 NHS projects over the past three years – where embedding succeeded, where it stalled and what consistently separates the two.

And Sonya Whittam and Julie Firth will look at framing – not marketing in the superficial sense but how structured positioning can either align with workload and governance realities or inadvertently create resistance.

Who should be in the room – and why this conversation matters

This is a room where decision architecture will be forensically examined.

I’ve capped it at 70 delegates because this only works if the discussion is senior and candid. There will be no recording.

If NHS adoption is commercially important to you, it may be worth asking whether your engagement model truly reflects how the system makes decisions.

Early Bird places are now live. I’d love to see you there.

At www.scottmckenzieconsultancy.com, we work directly inside the NHS, supporting provider collaboratives, commissioners and systemleaders to implement real change. We then help pharma, medtech and device companies interpret what’s happening, so they can engage the right stakeholders, align with NHS priorities and get their innovations embedded into care pathways.    

With more than 20 years working within the NHS and Pharma, medtech and devices companies, Scott brings a unique dual perspective, now captured in his book, Embedded: How Pharma, MedTech, and Device Companies Can Get Their Products into NHS Pathways and Stay There, which distils everything he’s learned into a practical playbook. Whether you’re launching a new product or trying to unlock stalled adoption, Embedded shows you how to reframe your offer, align with NHS priorities and make change stick.