COMPLIANCE
JW: “Well that certainly makes sense, but how did SFG20 actually address and solve your problems?” MH: “SFG20 gives us easy access to all compliance information quickly, and the technical bulletins we get monthly keep us up to date so that we can quickly jump into the system, find any sort of schedule changes, and adopt them as quickly as possible. We conduct internal meetings to make sure that we have the capacity to handle those changes if necessary, but SFG20 allows us to be on the pulse. I estimate that the full process of checking the latest SFG20 technical updates and manually updating those maintenance plans in my CAFM took up around 20% of my time. Two of me would be a lot easier.”
JW: “So, you’ve essentially lost the requirement to hire an additional Compliance officer as well. Have you made any other cost savings?” MH: “Many of our clients use the standard to figure out what they do and do not need to maintain legally, which can result in cost savings. We generally look at the statutory tasks – because obviously this is about legal compliance, and you can’t get away from doing that. We look at at the non-statutory tasks on a case-by-case basis, it we have the resource. “When it comes to carrying out compliance checks, our primary focus is clinical areas, and then non-clinical areas. SFG20 has given us the knowledge that we are doing things correctly, as well as which tasks we have to focus on. We’re part of the NHS, so for us it’s all about prioritising the patient experience and saving money ultimately. We’re a non-profit organisation, so we aren’t focused on making money, but rather saving it. “We’re still doing a large body of work to prove that we are actually making time and cost savings, but it’s a massive task, as we have two major hospitals that we manage, and the CAFM systems are not fully up to date, so it’s still an ongoing evolving process with that.”
JW: “So how are you finding Facilities-iQ, Mathew?” MH: “For me, obviously the new layout was great. It’s more modern, refreshing, and easy to navigate through, and I do like the comparison feature, which makes it easy to compare old schedules to new schedules. It’s perfect; it does everything it needs to do, and saves me messing about printing out documents or getting multiple screens up and trying to read through and highlight certain areas. It does it for you, and it saves so much time.”
JW: “That’s great to hear, but how was the migration More on SFG20
SFG20 has over 1000 asset- specific compliant maintenance schedules, including dedicated HTM/SHTM-aligned content, and is being more widely adopted across a range of healthcare estates thanks to the development of maintenance schedules specifically for hospitals, NHS Trusts, dentists, vets, and doctors’ surgeries. There are over 100 SFG20 specialist healthcare schedules, which have been built taking into account the requirements of the Health Technical Memoranda
(HTMs), which give comprehensive advice and guidance on the design, installation, and operation, of specialised building and engineering technology used in the delivery of healthcare. Where existing schedules don’t fit, SFG20 also provides bespoke solutions for complex medical assets. For example, SFG20 worked with NHS Blood and Transplant to create over 200 specialist tasks to cover its clinics, laboratories, cryo storage, cold rooms, and offices. Mark Walsh, National Estates and Facilities Technical manager at
NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “I was very impressed with SFG20. Adopting the system has been the right thing to do, as it helps to ensure that our maintenance procedures and tasks are always up to date with legal compliance across our whole estate. “We were focused on ensuring compliance with MHRA standards, as well as other legislation that relates to maintenance for building services. We had been relying on our contractors to do this, but we wanted to ensure that we had control to a recognised national standard.”
process from the old SFG20 software?” MH: “For us, it was straightforward. We use SFG20 to understand the updates and then upload them into our system. There is a whole range of new features that I’m looking forward to exploring, such as creating custom schedules and adding assets to work out holistic timings over what it takes to maintain buildings, which is really going to help us calculate the labour resource required to maintain our hospitals. It’s easy, as I said; I found the search feature a lot better, things are quicker to find, the technical updates are there, and it’s saving me time – which is the biggest benefit for me.”
JW: “How was your experience with the onboarding process?” MH: ”Perfect, seamless. Lesley McKaskie, the SFG20 Customer Training lead, was very patient. We had the three-day training session, and I was part of the beta testing too, so I already had a decent understanding of it. It’s nice having my colleagues getting licences too; the new subscription model means it’s not all on me anymore.”
JW: “Was the software difficult to learn?” MH: “No, it’s intuitive and simple. Navigation is there, the breadcrumb trail is there. You haven’t tried to reinvent the wheel too much, which is a good thing, because people are used to existing systems and established navigation styles.”
JW: “One final question, Mathew. How would you rate working with SFG20, and why?” MH: ”Working with SFG20 has been great. You’ve been professional, patient, and you’ve got the technical knowledge of what you’re doing, which gives us the confidence to trust you.”
A screenshot from the SFG20 software. The extensive library of schedules covers more than 70 different asset types, plus the fabric of the building itself.
James Weber
James Weber is a Marketing manager at SFG20, the UK standard for building maintenance specification. He says he is ‘dedicated to bringing real customer experiences with the SFG20 standard and software to life, in order to help show the FM community that there is an easier, cheaper, and safer way, to approach compliant Planned Preventative Maintenance’.
May 2025 Health Estate Journal 63
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