Lifts in Health: Health Technical Memorandum 08-02 Revisited

The Department of Health (DH) is responsible for the health and adult social care matters in England, along with a few elements of the same matters which are not otherwise devolved to the Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Northern Ireland Executive. It oversees the English National Health Service (NHS). The NHS employs more than 1.6 million people, putting it in the top five of the world’s largest workforces together with the US Department of Defence, McDonalds, Walmart and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The NHS in England is the biggest part of the system, catering to a population of 53.9 million and employing more than 1.3 million people. The DH publishes Health Technical Memoranda (HTM) and Health Building Notes (HBN). HTM 08-02 Lifts provides guidance and recommendations for lifts to be provided in all healthcare buildings from the simplest rural practice with one lift to high rise facilities with many lifts. Lifts were originally covered in HTM 2024: 1995. This was replaced by HTM 08-02 in February 2010, which was written by the author and peer reviewed by an expert panel. It is held to be authoritative in the UK healthcare field. Since 2010 many changes have occurred in regulations, standards and the state of the art. The author has updated HTM 08-021 and presents her work in this paper. She also describes the structure of the HTMs and HBNs published by the DH.