China Issues National Standard for Aging-Friendly Community Facilities

China News Service reported that the State Administration for Market Regulation, alongside the Standardisation Administration of China, approved and published the recommended national standard titled Community Embedded Service Facilities—Specification for Aging-Friendly Facilities Configuration (GB/T 48470—2026). The standard addresses missing elderly-friendly design details and inconsistent facility dimensions by standardizing site selection, layout, hardware, and inspection rules across community service areas to support a 15-minute home-care elderly service circle. The standard establishes baseline spatial safety rules across community embedded service facilities. Key operational spaces such as eldercare facilities, community canteens, and community health service stations cannot be located in basements or semi-basements. Any facility situated on the second floor or higher must be equipped with an elevator, and the use of curved or spiral staircases is strictly prohibited. Specific minimum dimensions and hardware measures apply across seven facility categories, requiring community service centers to have at least 600 square meters of floor space and eldercare facilities at least 350 square meters. The standard further requires direct emergency call buttons linking care beds, toilets, and bathrooms to duty rooms, low service counters at housekeeping windows, automated external defibrillators in fitness zones, and smooth floor transitions wherever path height differences exceed 5 millimeters. Operators of these facilities must institute a closed-loop review system conducting a comprehensive inspection at least once every year. This annual inspection requires document reviews, on-site measurements, and sample verifications to identify problems, form corrective action plans, and track remediation to completion.

Operating entities are directly affected by regular maintenance duties, requiring them to carry out document examinations, physical site measurements, and sampling checks at least once annually to trace and correct every identified issue.