Getting to grips and deploying first class compliance across the NHS estate is crucial as building maintenance increases in complexity. Estate leaders face greater pressure to make sure facilities remain safe, run well, and are fit for their purpose, says Helen Showler, Hard FM Compliance Lead for NHS Property Services
Compliance is no longer simply a box-ticking exercise, but it is a major component of patient safety, operational resilience, and healthy estate management.
NHS Property Services’ Guide to Maintaining the Estate surveyed 77 estate leaders in March 2026, revealing that compliance is the second most important factor in daily maintenance decisions with patient safety coming first in their considerations.
The top priority when estate leaders were asked to forecast the next five years was named as maintaining compliance with legislation, other priorities included: backlog maintenance, workforce challenges, and data improvement initiatives.
Our understanding of compliance is that it must be embedded into every aspect of maintenance planning, asset management and operational decision-making and cannot sit alongside as an isolated, separate function.
How does Compliance work in the NHS Estate?
Compliance within healthcare estates includes both statutory obligations and best-practice standards. The areas it covers are: safety, electrical systems, water hygiene, ventilation and critical engineering systems, lifts and pressure systems, environmental management, and overall health and safety governance. The NHS must follow these laws to protect patients, staff and visitors and ensure healthcare services are safe and effective.
NHS Property Services follows a method of true compliance which makes sure we go beyond just getting a certificate or passing an inspection. This means making sure buildings are safe and functioning well and are regularly reviewed by technically competent professionals who are prepared to challenge incomplete documentation and ensure proper documentation of actions taken to correct any errors.
Just having a certificate does not mean a building a truly fit for purpose.
Pre-empt risks before they become a problem
Failures in compliance failures rarely emerge without warning signs and they almost always appear before a serious incident occurs. Frequent equipment breakdowns, rising levels of maintenance only being done when problems arise, forcing remedial actions needing to be done time and time again and leading to repeated failures of inspections are all indicators that underlying compliance risks may be causing the problem.
Organisations that successfully manage compliance adopt a proactive rather than reactive approach. When recurring issues emerge, they investigate root causes, review wider asset performance, and escalate risks where patterns are identified. This shift from responding to isolated incidents toward managing trends and risks creates a safer and more resilient estate.
Why Forward Planning is key
A healthy compliance framework starts with a foundation of effective planning. NHS estates are subject to a wide range of inspection and testing requirements, many of which operate on a schedule or based on how much risk there is. Without a forward look of future activities, organisations can quickly find themselves falling through a gap due to a lack of compliance in crucial areas.
Our Guide recommends maintaining a twelve-month forward plan covering all compliance activities, with inspection frequencies determined by risk rather than what is usually done or a fixed schedule.
Advanced planning should also account for procurement lead times, resource availability, and operational constraints. This is particularly important for complex activities such as Electrical Installation Condition Reports (EICRs), which can take significant time to schedule and complete.
As Helen Showler, Hard FM Compliance Lead at NHS Property Services, states, organisations are ultimately responsible and accountable for every person within the buildings they operate. This responsibility demands a structured and proactive approach to compliance management.
How to build strong governance and accountability
For first class compliance to be possible there must be clear ownership, defined processes, and solid governance. Questions such as where certification is stored, who reviews documentation, how remedial works are tracked and what happens when information is incomplete should never be left aside.
Clearly defined processes are essential to effective compliance management. They establish ownership, accountability and responsibilities, while ensuring everyone understands what is required, how tasks should be carried out and how issues should be identified, escalated and resolved promptly.
This is even more important in leased or multi-occupied buildings, where accountability can become difficult to pinpoint. Regardless of occupancy arrangements, ultimate responsibility often remains with the estate managers. Transparent reporting arrangements and agreements, plus explicit ownership of responsibilities, are essential to avoid compliance risks falling between organisations.
Compliance systems should not rely solely on one individual’s knowledge or experience. Staff and job changes and workload pressures can all weaken compliance being successfully maintained especially if governance is dependent on specific people in certain roles. Sustainable compliance requires structures that remain effective regardless of personnel and role changes.
How technology helps compliance
Technology is being used to strengthen compliance performance. Digital tools such as Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) systems provide greater visibility, consistency, and control across large estates. According to the guide, implementation of CAFM technology helped NHS Property Services achieve and maintain 98 per cent of the compliance its estate needed.
A well-run CAFM system delivers a single asset register, real-time inspection tracking, certification management, remedial action monitoring, and consistent reporting across many sites. This level of oversight that is immediate allows estate leaders to spot emerging risks earlier and, consequently, make better decisions.
Newer technologies such as sensors and building monitoring systems that NHS Property Services’ NHS Open Space uses, provide further opportunities. Real-time data on environmental conditions, asset performance and service utilisation allows organisations to move from periodic inspection towards continuous assurance and proactive intervention.
Compliance Culture
Although all these measures will improve compliance, it is only really achieved when the culture of the workplace embraces it. In other words, inspections, systems, and policies alone are not enough. This is because between audits and inspections, compliance is maintained by the everyday actions of managers, engineers, contractors, and operational teams.
NHS Property Services believes it is crucial to create an environment where concerns can be raised early, issues are challenged appropriately and corrective action is taken consistently. Organisations that view compliance as an ongoing process rather than something to do periodically exercise are better positioned to protect patients, support staff, and maintain resilient healthcare environments.
In conclusion, combining strong governance, proactive planning, competent oversight, effective technology and a culture of accountability, NHS organisations can move beyond simply being awarded the certificate saying they meet the basic regulatory standards. Instead, they can create estates that are much safer, more reliable, and better equipped to support a first-class healthcare system both now and in the future.
