During my time in the NHS I was not aware of any standards re non clinical areas. Had many arguments with Estates etc on the amount of space required by people in offices etc as they always insisted on the minimum required by the Workplace Regulations regardless of layout etc. I always insisted that staff were involved in any changes so they could at lest have their say. The standard at my Trust became 60 sq ft per person (still find it easier to measure in English) unless it was a very large open plan office when we would consider reduction in space per person although never below the Workplace Regs minimum. I had many battery hen type situations at one point but a good risk assessment soon changed things. Look at the work being done in the office, what equipment is involved, is it all day working or are some people only in for a short time - can you consider hot desking - this can be a major problem as people like to have their own desks as a sign off their importance to the NHS - maybe something to do with consultants being guaranteed their own office as part of their contract. Get yourself a good standard but let there be some flexibility to suit the occassional problem area. Take care John C

You say you are familiar with the Workplace Regs so why not use these as the standard. I work in the NHS and that is what we use.

My wife works for the NHS and has a similar issue. Her department keep being relocated into different office spaces, the current one being very cramped, which they are all complaining about. I directed her to the Workplace regs, so the next day they got a tape measure out and quickly worked out the space did not comply. The regs state a min of 11m3, they actually had 7m3. They raised this with Management through the proper channels, only to get a response along the lines of, "its not a problem as we don't envisage you to all be in the office at the same time, as some of you work part time, you have breaks at different times and the nature of the work takes you in and out of the office, so we don't see the number of you physically in the office at any one time exceeding the minimum space requirement". They intend taking it further.