Closely examining replacement guidance

Of all the Health Technical Memoranda, HTM 2022 seems to have earned particular importance in health building engineering and estate management. This is perhaps surprising – the technology encountered in medical gas pipeline systems is not cutting edge, has elements common to many industrial systems, and a number of building services in hospitals include much more advanced technologies.

In comparison with other building services, however, medical gas pipeline systems are unique in that they convey medicinal products, i.e. medical gases, from a point of supply – cylinder, liquid source, or plant – directly to a patient. It is this fact that necessitates sound, if not sophisticated, design; good quality installation; exhaustive testing and commissioning; and, finally and perhaps more importantly, vigilant operational management.

Readers of the new document will not find any major surprises: developments tend to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The first edition of the forerunner to HTM 2022, HTM 22, was published in 1972. This was based on an existing data sheet, but included a significant number of additions. A further edition was published in 1977 and a final reprint, with minor corrections, appeared in 1978. The original Permit-to-work system was published in 1977. The current edition of HTM 2022 was published in 1997 and replaced the fivevolume edition, published by NHS Estates in 1994.