Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance NHS England has issued to NHS trusts on ensuring continuity of access to appropriately competent engineering personnel outside normal working hours where the knowledge or competence required to respond to failures of critical hospital infrastructure is held by only one, or a small number of, employees; and what guidance has been issued on mitigating any associated operational and business continuity risks.

NHS England supports organisations through technical guidance that sets out expectations for the safe management, competence, and resilience of healthcare engineering services. Relevant guidance includes:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/HTM_00.pdf

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/health-technical-memorandum-02-01-medical-gas-pipeline-systems-part-a-design-installation-validation-verification-aug-2026.pdf

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/prn02333-firecode-fire-safety-nhs-health-technical-memorandum-05-01-managing-healthcare-fire-safety-v3.pdf