Infection resilient environments: time for a major upgrade (National Engineering Policy Centre, June 2022)

Summary

Government must seize the post-pandemic opportunity to mandate long-term improvements to infection control in commercial, public and residential buildings to reduce the transmission of future waves of COVID-19, new pandemics, seasonal influenza and other infectious diseases, according to a report published by the National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC). Infection control must also be coordinated with efforts to improve energy efficiency and fire safety, to support the three goals of safe, healthy and sustainable buildings.

Commissioned in 2021 by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance FRS FMedSci, the NEPC research, led by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE), set out to identify the measures needed in the UK’s built environment and transport systems to reduce transmission of infectious diseases.

Ensuring that buildings and transport systems are designed, operated, managed and regulated for infection control is critical to minimise transmission, states the report.

Content

The report recommends new regulations and standards that apply throughout the lifetime of a building to create healthier environments, taking lessons from existing accessibility, Legionella, or fire regulations. In addition to this, codes of practice should be introduced to make sure that the health of building occupants is a day-to-day consideration for those in the building and construction industry, from designers through to asset managers. The report makes eight recommendations to enshrine infection resilience in building regulations and improve the health of our indoor environments, which include:

1. Establishing best practice – the British Standards Institution (BSI) should convene the relevant expertise and develop meaningful standards that are embedded into existing design and operational practices.
2. Promoting building health – the UK Health Security Agency should promote the benefits of infection resilience and good indoor air quality to building and transport owners and the public through signage and ratings in a similar way to food or water standards.
3. Ensuring that buildings operate as designed in terms of infection resilience – industry bodies and public procurement must drive improvements to the commissioning and testing of building systems at handover, and subsequently over the life of a building.
4. Establishing in-use regulations with local authorities by 2030 to maintain standards of safe and healthy building performance over the building lifetime.
5. Ensuring Government departments such as BEIS, DfT and DLUHC consider incorporating infection resilience into major retrofit programmes designed to meet the commitments of the Net Zero Strategy.