Standards Development
Priority scoring
35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0
The January workshop also saw attendees weight the various issues in terms of perceived priority.
Figure 1: Priority scoring of areas requiring standards based on workshop delegate feedback.
• Value versus cost What criteria can be used to balance investment decisions? Judge capital investment against saving on revenue costs and the quality of fittings. Challenging traditional design to break the mould could demand a ‘sea change’ in the requirements for products, so getting the standards right is critical. Just one element wrong can have enormous impact on overall performance, and if not right initially it is hard to change without making something else worse. Measures such as length of stay, untoward incidents, and feedback, can quantify benefits. ‘Value engineering’ has the most negative impact on design outcomes, followed by risk avoidance reactions to isolated incidents. • Barriers to be overcome Systems are slow to adapt to new ideas and communicate good practice. Rules can be restrictive, such as infection control criteria preventing use of carpets. In-house cleaning could give responsibility and flexibility. Regulators’ opinions on security differ from those of patients and staff, and create inflexibility. An integrated design approach is needed, rather than ‘shopping lists’ of features.
AREAS REQUIRING STANDARDS Delegates at the January workshop weighted areas they believed require standards by priority, as shown in Figure 1.
THE APPROACH TO STANDARDS Requirements must be flexible, not rigid, to meet changing user and service-provider needs. We should promote knowledge-sharing, and work with all stakeholders. Content should be mindful of existing, new, and emerging good practice, not based on knee-jerk reactions. A key element should be to focus on the
‘Requirements must be flexible, not rigid, to meet changing user and service-provider needs’
20 THE NETWORK April 2015
relationship between staff and patients. Blaming the object rather than looking at the wider picture is unhelpful. Would staff leave patients to their own devices if they believed their environment to be robust and safe, and stop interaction? Is the answer to take away ligature points, or to help prevent these issues occurring in the first place? Potential positive and negative outcomes from standards are shown in Table 2.
Wider consultation – next steps Looking forward, and the next step is to use the January workshop output to produce a consultation document to inform wider national consultation, and for comments during April and May 2015; the document will be available from the website listed at the end of the article. Stakeholder engagement will help ensure outcomes meet majority needs, and achieve sector adoption. To date, estates professionals and the supply chain have been best represented, and will continue to be involved. We would like to hear more from organisations
Chris Hall
Chris Hall AMIMechE, principal consultant and BRE’s health sector lead, has over 25 years’ experience in engineering, design, construction, and energy, much of it spent helping the NHS and its supply chain improve its energy and environmental performance and deliver more sustainable outcomes from healthcare buildings. He has provided technical support as environmental technical
advisor to numerous NHS capital development schemes to designers, builders, and NHS clients, on how best to minimise their environmental impact and deliver best-value outcomes. He has also run energy awareness campaigns for NHS organisations, and developed and delivered training to NHS estates professionals on behalf of IHEEM, HefmA, and The Carbon Trust. Chris Hall was employed as technical advisor to Department of Health on carbon
reduction policy for many years, contributing to the ‘NHS Carbon Reduction Strategy for England’, and the health system strategy, ‘Sustainable, Resilient, Healthy People and Places’, and was the author of HTM 07-02 Encode – making energy work in healthcare. More recently he been involved with BREEAM and its work on the impact of better internal environments on health and wellbeing.
representing patient groups, and from those responsible for policy, strategy, and regulation. Feedback and comments will be analysed to
fine-tune the shape and scope of the project. We will form a steering panel of stakeholders to advise BRE. The resulting consensus will evolve into a brief for the development of standards, and this should be available by this summer.
ONGOING STANDARDS DEVELOPMENT Development of the standards should take about two years to complete. It is hoped they will be available for use by around 2017. Working with organisations will allow standards to be tested and evaluated in real-life situations, as well as providing case studies and essential feedback to the team along the journey. This should ensure that standards are fit for purpose, deliver improved outcomes consistently through better product performance, encourage innovation and flexibility, and reduce costs. •
• Please share this article with others to raise awareness of the consultation. To participate in the consultation please go to:
www.dimhn.org/testing.
Photograph courtesy of BRE.
Lighting
Furniture Security Windows
Outside space Testing
Ironmongery Bedrooms Proactive O&M Doors Design Fire
Furnishings
Relationships Sanitary
Photograph courtesy of BRE.
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