The NHS and Youth Participation Conference
Delivering the Milburn Review: How the NHS can create opportunity, improve health and strengthen local economies
The Milburn Review highlights that health is a central factor in youth disengagement with the workforce. Poor health and lack of opportunity are increasingly acting as a barrier to participation.
The NHS therefore has a critical role to play in increasing youth participation in the workforce: it is the country’s largest employer, purchases and commissions billions of pounds of goods and services and is a key anchor institution within every community.
This conference will explore how the NHS can step up to the challenge and effect real change for young people within the communities it serves, support economic inclusion and deliver better health outcomes.
This will include learning from those already delivering work up and down the country, hearing from people with lived experiences, and give participants an opportunity to jointly develop plans of action to take forward into their own systems and organisations.
We will be joined by:
- Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
- Ben Morrin, Chief Executive, NHS Employers
- Bill Jones, Executive Principal, Leeds City College
- Sarah Morgan, National Strategic Advisor for Youth Participation and Health, The NHS Alliance
This event is being delivered in partnership with The NHS Alliance, NHS Employers, NHS England, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Association of Colleges and Leeds City College.
Who should attend?
This event is aimed at:
- Senior leaders within the NHS
- Those leading on youth-related projects across the NHS
- Wider public sector and people leaders who are leading on widening participation and local recruitment in their own area.
Attending the event
The conference will be at Leeds City College Printworks Campus on 19 November 2026. This is approximately 20 minutes from Leeds Railway Station. This event is free to attend. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Aims
The Milburn Review will highlight the need to act on this agenda and the important role the NHS must play. This conference will be the first national event post the Review, offering a unique opportunity to focus on how we can deliver for young people and tackle the crisis of our time in every region. We want you to come away from the event with:
- Greater awareness of the policy context, programmes and funding, and how to integrate them.
- Shared understanding of the role the NHS can play in enabling youth participation in the workforce, as well as the good work already being done across the health sector.
- A dedicated opportunity to consider and prioritise the specific ways in which your part of the NHS can enable better youth employment and participation outcomes.
- A say in what the right national support offer is to accelerate and enable you to champion this work and effect change in your organisations based on your priorities.
What to expect
The event will run from 9:30 to 16:00, including time at the start for networking.
You will have the opportunity to engage with speakers from across the NHS on some of the incredible work happening to tackle youth unemployment, including:
One Gloucestershire ICS
Widening access to NHS and social care careers through its We Want You campaign, supporting young people who are not in education, employment or training through work experience, pre-employment programmes and direct recruitment into clinical and non-clinical roles. It is also developing earlier support for softer skills and tailored approaches for neurodivergent young people.
Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust
Developing employment pathways for young people through apprenticeships, targeted support for care leavers and partnerships with Jobcentre Plus. Its planned ‘New to Care’ scheme will provide wraparound support to help young people with mental health conditions and no previous healthcare experience find a health career.
You will also be able to meet and hear from young people with lived experience of being NEET and, working with others around your table, you will turn ideas into practical proposals that you can take back and champion within your organisation and with wider partners.
This is the first national NHS event following publication of the Milburn Review. It represents a unique opportunity for NHS leaders to shape how the health service responds to one of the most pressing social, economic and health challenges of our time and to help define the NHS contribution to a new national mission on youth participation.