WAYFINDING
Wayfinding: hidden costs and challenges
Dr Colette Jeffrey has been identifying and solving wayfinding problems in NHS hospitals for many years. Having written the official NHS Wayfinding guidance and worked with more than 25 NHS hospitals, she recently completed a PhD study that investigated why people get lost in buildings. This article explains why hospital wayfinding is so difficult, the tragic consequences of wayfinding failure, why wayfinding strategies are essential, and ways to make your sites easier to navigate.
Wayfinding problems are inevitable in multi-building, maze-like healthcare environments with thousands of first-time visitors. Knowing how much time staff spend directing lost people is the first step towards identifying key wayfinding issues and measuring the impact on operational efficiency. A short staff survey will help you understand the scale of the problems and calculate the hidden costs of misdirected staff time. Can a first-time visitor find destinations at your site
without asking for directions? If your answer is “Yes” there is no need for you to read on. If you are shaking your head, knowing people struggle to find many places at your site, please continue reading.
The hidden cost of wayfinding failures A recent survey of 100 staff at a large acute NHS hospital found the Trust could be spending over £5.6m on staff helping people find their way, rather than doing their primary job. This substantial figure is based on the following simple calculation: n Average time staff spend directing people is 22 minutes per day.
n 22 mins a day = 84 hours per year (assuming 5 days a week, 46 weeks a year).
n Staff earning a real Living Wage of £13.45 x 84hrs = £1,129 a year.
n 5,000 staff x £1,129 is £5.6m a year of staff time directing people.
n 1,000 staff x £1,129 is still over £1m a year of avoidable costs.
n Staff on higher wages giving directions costs much more.
This staff survey was small-scale – larger surveys at other hospitals are planned – but the findings and potential costs are clear. Do you know how much time your staff spend every day directing lost people? Over a third (37 per cent) of staff surveyed felt that giving wayfinding help was impacting their productivity. At the study site, wayfinding problems were evident
in Children’s Outpatients where staff reported dealing with 374 lost people over four days of data gathering. Seventy-two per cent were in the right area but at the wrong desk, but 10 per cent needed to find the Emergency Department on the other side of the site. At the Imaging desk, staff directed 113 people over four days, with almost a fifth looking for Main X-ray – a five to 10 minute walk along a difficult to describe route. Finding out which staff and services are being most impacted by lost people is worthwhile.
Surveys and consultations give useful insights A good way to measure the scale and impact of your wayfinding problems is to ask your frontline staff and service users. They have extensive first-hand knowledge that senior management only get glimpses of. Questions that enable you to calculate costs and time spent include: n How often do you direct lost people? n How much time each day do you spend giving directions?
n Are there any places lots of people ask directions to?
n Do you find it easy to direct people?
n Which places are hardest to direct to?
n Do you think helping lost people impacts your productivity or service efficiency?
A survey created using Microsoft Forms generates a QR code for easy dissemination of the survey. An Excel spreadsheet of all
October 2026 Health Estate Journal 39
NHS Wayfinding guidance.
Staff wayfinding survey.
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