Getting to grips with the revised Part K

Health Technical Memoranda (HTM) give comprehensive advice and guidance on the design, installation, and operation, of specialised building and engineering technology used in the delivery of healthcare. They include use for when developing governance and assurance systems which take account of risk, and the safety of patients, staff, and visitors.

They are issued by NHS England, and focus on healthcare-specific elements of standards, policies, and up-to-date established best practice.1 They are applicable to both new and existing sites, and are for use at various stages during the whole building lifecycle. In the hierarchy of guidance documents, they are akin to guidance issued under Article 50 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.2 As such, compliance with the guidance may be relied upon as tending to establish legal compliance with fire safety duties. Fire safety is covered by the HTM 05 series, also known as Firecode, which includes the subjects shown in Table 1.

The definition of a complex healthcare premises in Part K is a 'hospital or other healthcare premises which place a dependence on staff for evacuation'. This, however, only touches the surface of what one can find in a complex healthcare premises, with features which are not common, or less common, to other buildings, as follows: