Adult in-patient facilities: planning and design (HBN 04-01)

Supersedes 'Health Building Note 4 In-patient Accommodation: Options for choice' (1997) Healthcare delivery is constantly changing, and so too are the boundaries between primary, secondary and tertiary care. The focus now is on delivering healthcare closer to people’s homes. The traditional division of Health Building Notes into discrete books of information based on hospital departments is therefore no longer appropriate. Instead, the new Health Building Note framework (shown below) is based on the patient’s experience across the spectrum of care from home to healthcare setting and back, using the national service frameworks (NSFs) as a model. This structure better reflects current policy and service delivery. In the past the Health Building Note series was intended to give advice on the briefing and design implications of Departmental policy and HBN 4 provided guidance on the planning and design issues of hospital accommodation for people with acute illness or immediately before and after an acute intervention. It provided the basis for making decisions on the nature and configuration for relatively small upgrading programmes to major newbuild projects. The Health Building Notes have now been organised into a suite of 17 core subjects. Care-group-based Health Building Notes will provide information about a specific care group or pathway but will cross-refer to Health Building Notes on generic (clinical) activities or support systems as appropriate. Core subjects will be subdivided into specific topics and classified by a two-digit suffix (-01, -02 etc), and may be further subdivided into Supplements A, B etc. All Health Building Notes are supported by the overarching Health Building Note 00 in which the key areas of design and building are dealt with. Example The Health Building Note on accommodation for adult in-patients will be represented as follows: “Health Building Note 04-01: Adult in-patient facilities” The supplement to Health Building Note 04-01 on isolation facilities will be represented as follows: “Health Building Note 04-01: Supplement A – Isolation facilities in acute settings” New Health Building Note number and series title Type of Health Building Note Health Building Note 00 – Core elements Support-system-based Health Building Note 01 – Cardiac care Care-group-based Health Building Note 02 – Cancer care Care-group-based Health Building Note 03 – Mental health Care-group-based Health Building Note 04 – In-patient care Generic-activity-based Health Building Note 05 – Older people Care-group-based Health Building Note 06 – Diagnostics Generic-activity-based Health Building Note 07 – Renal care Care-group-based Health Building Note 08 – Long-term conditions/long-stay care Care-group-based Health Building Note 09 – Children, young people and maternity services Care-group-based Health Building Note 10 – Surgery Generic-activity-based Health Building Note 11 – Community care Generic-activity-based Health Building Note 12 – Out-patient care Generic-activity-based Health Building Note 13 – Decontamination Support-system-based Health Building Note 14 – Medicines management Support-system-based Health Building Note 15 – Emergency care Care-group-based Health Building Note 16 – Pathology Support-system-based