Estates technical guidance
Technical standards and guidance (health building notes/health technical memoranda documents)
The documents have moved and can be accessed from this section of our website.
Standard Department of Health and Social Care website protocol is to mark documents as ‘withdrawn’ as part of the redirect to our website. We are aware that this message on the gov.uk website is creating the impression that individual health building notes (HBN) and health technical memoranda (HTM) documents have been withdrawn. This is not the case – all the documents hosted on our website are current.
The status of a document can be checked on the complete list of publications related to NHS estates page of our website which includes details of any documents that have been updated/archived and the dates this took effect.
Authorising engineers – national register and certification
A letter from Simon Corben and Pete Sellars introducing a central register and certification process for authorising engineers (AEs), being developed by NHS England and the Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management (IHEEM) to provide a single, coherent standard that will strengthen governance and safety assurance across the NHS estate in England.
These technical guidance documents bring together all documents relating to health building notes (HBNs) and Health technical memoranda (HTMs) as well as any miscellaneous NHS estates related technical guidance.
Responsibility for technical guidance transferred to NHS England February 2017. All extant Department of Health and Social Care documents can now be found here in addition to new guidance issued by NHS England and NHS Improvement.
- Complete list of GOV.UK publications related to NHS estates – This list shows the publication status of NHS estates including building notes, technical memorandums and framework policies and procedures.
- Reminder of fire safety considerations when increasing the estate capacity of existing areas – This document provides an important reminder of the legal duties around fire safety.
- Health building notes – This series brings together all documents relating to health building notes (HBN).
- Health technical memoranda – This series brings together all documents relating to Health technical memoranda.
- NHS Estates Technical Bulletin (NETB) – NETBs contain technical guidance and standards which systems and organisations are required to consider and implement, where applicable.
- ProCure 23: A new route to market for NHS capital works
- Other guidance – all other miscellaneous NHS estates related technical guidance.
- Estates technical guidance
- Health building notes
- Health technical memoranda
- NHS Estates Technical Bulletin
- ProCure23: A new route to market for NHS capital works
- Modern methods of construction (MMC)
- NHS Net Zero Building Standard
- Integrated care system infrastructure strategy
- NHS clinical waste strategy
- NHS Premises Assurance Model
- National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness 2025
- Green leases framework
- Other guidance
- Complete list of publications related to NHS estates
- Neighbourhood health centres