Wayfinding: effective wayfinding and signing systems, guidance for healthcare facilities.

Written and designed for NHS Estates by the Information Design Unit, the guidance was first published in 1999 and issued in a second edition in 2005 by The Stationery Office (ISBN 0-11-322698-5). It superseded Health Technical Memorandum 65 'Signs'. The government now publishes it on GOV.UK under the Department of Health and Social Care as 'Improving directions within healthcare buildings', listed as applying to England, and NHS England lists it among its estates publications.

Its central argument is that wayfinding is not just signs. It sets out how people find their way, how impairments, anxiety and unfamiliar terminology affect them, and how to build a business case, then works through strategy, pre-visit information and on-site design before it reaches the sign itself.

No newer national edition has been published. In England, Health Building Note 00-04 (updated April 2013) still refers to it for signage. In Scotland, NHS National Services Scotland reissued it in August 2016 as best practice guidance in NHSScotland, with a status note that replaces the Disability Discrimination Act references with the Equality Act 2010 and points to the NHSScotland signage guidelines for identity, while warning that those identity guidelines should not be used without this document. In Wales, NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership updated its status note in January 2020 (Publication Notice 20/01) for the Welsh Language Standards: signage in public areas, and internal operational areas where staff have access, must be in Welsh and English.

Read it with that age in mind. Its legal references (the DDA 1995, HFN 14) are out of date, and current access standards such as BS 8300-2:2018 and Approved Document M take precedence on dimensions and contrast. The strategic method has aged far better than the references.

The Irish counterpart is the HSE Signage Manual. The two differ in kind: the HSE manual is a sign specification, with a fixed sign family, sizes and colours, while the NHS guidance is a method for planning and auditing wayfinding that leaves sign styling to each trust's NHS identity. On a cross-border healthcare portfolio you will use the NHS document to plan and the HSE manual to specify on HSE sites.

The 2005 document is Crown copyright, and its own imprint says it is not covered by the HMSO Click-Use licence and that reuse needs permission. We therefore link to GOV.UK rather than host a copy.