Key guidance gets unique online portal

 Health Estate Journal reports on the official launch of the new “Space for Health” portal at the recent Healthcare Estates conference.

The 2009 IHEEM national conference witnessed the four healthcare administrations in the UK unveil the new “Space for Health” website on a dedicated Central Office of Information stand. A series of demonstrations of the system’s front-end capabilities – new content and sections will to be added over coming months – were complemented by presentations explaining the reasons for, and background to, the portal’s development, and future plans for its refinement, by two senior Department of Health personnel, Jonathan Millman and Chris Holme. Both have had substantial input into the new resource’s development. Head of KM and research, Gateway Reviews, Estates and Facilities Division at the Department Jonathan Millman began by explaining that the decision to put the various HTM and HBM documents online had been taken jointly by, and following collaboration between, the Department of Health (England), the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (Northern Ireland), Health Facilities Scotland, and Welsh Health Estates. The organisations had initiated the process in earnest in November 2006 with a series of stakeholder events, before some months later producing a strategic review and digital media report, and, subsequently, a business and transitional plan. A year later the four national estates and facilities administrations jointly published an online guidance proposal, before launching a pilot website in April 2008, the performance of which was subsequently evaluated. Last year, as the new website’s launch drew closer, the “requirements gathering” process for the new portal and the IT procurement needed to get the service operational were completed, followed by user testing of the new website during October and, finally, the site’s official “preview” at late October’s Healthcare Estates 2009 exhibition in Harrogate. Jonathan Millman explained that central to the new website’s development had been the four estates administrations’ belief that users of HTM and HBN guidance, who typically range from estates managers to architects and building contractors, and who are all now operating in an increasingly timepressured environment, not only have an ever more urgent requirement for the information, but also require it to be more quickly and easily accessible, and “specific to healthcare.”

Guidance being reformatted