Health building notes

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Standard Department of Health and Social Care website protocol is to mark documents as ‘withdrawn’ as part of the redirect to our website.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the impression that individual health building notes (HBN) and health technical memoranda (HTM) documents have been withdrawn.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.

This page brings together all documents relating to health building notes.

Health building notes give best practice guidance on the design and planning of new healthcare buildings and on the adaptation or extension of existing facilities.

They provide information to support the briefing and design processes for individual projects in the NHS building programme.

The ProCure23 Framework is the recommended procurement method for publicly-funded capital projects over £1 million. The Principal Supply Chain Partners have developed a number of repeatable room arrangements for use in NHS Acute and mental health facilities, all of which are fully compliant with HBNs and Health Technical Memoranda (HTM).

You might also be interested in the HTM document series. Or you may wish to view a complete list of NHS estates related guidance past and present.

Documents