WAYFINDING
leaflets, and printed maps that need to be consistent with signs and letters.
n Patient Experience teams and PALS responsible for letters, reception desk staff training, and volunteers giving directions that need to be consistent with signs, letters, and digital information.
n IT and Digital teams responsible for emails, texts, apps, and websites that need to be consistent with signs, printed letters, and verbal directions.
n New Hospital Programme coordinators responsible for ensuring wayfinding in the new hospital considers how people navigate the existing site now, during and after construction.
n Clinical teams responsible for ensuring staff use agreed simple names, avoid using abbreviations, regularly review typical patient journeys and flag up any operational wayfinding issues to the appropriate directorate, or to the Wayfinding Manager.
n Chief Executive teams and frontline teams are all responsible for developing and maintaining an effective wayfinding strategy and consistent system.
The three factors that influence wayfinding success.
specialist wayfinding consultants. Most try to identify and solve wayfinding problems using in-house skills, with no action plan or strategy. Most Trusts split responsibility for wayfinding across multiple directorates and teams, with: n Capital Projects teams responsible for new buildings that need new signs consistent with the rest of the site, and clear linking routes.
n Estates & Facilities teams are responsible for signs, maps, and environmental developments that need new information. Reactive fixes are common.
Lynch models 2026. n Communications teams responsible for websites,
Common hospital layout problems Here are just a few issues faced by NHS hospitals in the UK. Many sites are dealing with three or four structural or operational issues. Understanding your priorities helps you to plan improvements: n Interconnected buildings, with separated lifts and stairs, floors that are not connected, and level names that do not align.
n Buildings connected by seemingly endless corridors without describable features.
n A sloped site with buildings having more than one ‘Ground’ level.
n Multiple site and building entrances with unclear signs. n Building and area names that look or sound similar. n Identical looking corridors across different floors. n No describable landmarks for orientation or to use in spoken directions.
n Area zoning, colour-coding, and simplification systems that staff do not use.
Real confusion occurs when any or all these issues are not resolved cohesively and effectively.
Understanding your site structure is useful Large hospitals are like a small town or city. Urban planning theory is useful for defining your site structure. In a study of US cities, Kevin Lynch identified five elements that support the formation of a mental map and are widely used in commercial wayfinding design practice, and in wayfinding strategies: n Nodes (decision points and junctions). n Paths (routes and corridors). n Landmarks (recognisable describable features). n Districts (zones and areas). n Edges (boundaries and barriers to movement).
Applying Lynch’s theory to today’s hospital sites, you can start to identify the core structure of your site. Here are five examples of sites with different structures, but all five factors can be seen across each site:
Why a Trust-wide Wayfinding Strategy is essential Developing and implementing a Wayfinding Strategy requires a committed multi-directorate team working together. You need people who can identify key wayfinding problems at your sites, listen to stakeholders,
42 Health Estate Journal October 2026
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