Healthcare needs security at all Levels

Depending on where one looks for evidence, it seems clear that protecting personal safety is not a trivial matter in the NHS. In January this year, The NHS Security Management Service suggested that almost 57,000 violent assaults were made on NHS staff in the previous 12 months (a three per cent rise from the year before). Acute care was particularly badly affected.

Danger from stress
Many hospitals and healthcare establishments have equipped nursing staff with personal attack alarms and pagers specifically as a remedy to this problem. Keeping staff safe is more difficult in situations under pressure and when people feel stressed.  
    
Dr Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary of the service, said: “We are concerned, for example, that staff shortages could mean a return to the days of long waits in A&E where tempers could flare on a regular basis. We would urge Trusts to do everything in their power to avoid this situation.”

Lone workers
How does a hospital keep its staff safe, particularly when they are working on their own? A relatively low-cost solution in use in many healthcare environments is a wireless alarm carried by members of staff. If encountering a crisis, a nurse or other worker simply press a single button that transmits an alarm that alerts management and security staff. These and similar panic buttons can be worn discreetly on a belt clip, wrist band or necklace; additional buttons can be permanently mounted in locations where risks commonly exist. Such alarms include accurate location and a simple, single button for easy use in emergencies.  

Patient and Visitor Security
In another initiative, the Whittington Hospital, In North London, and other hospitals gives their waiting room patients the freedom of the hospital and an easy recall to the department by equipping them with anti-viral, anti-bacterial pagers at registration. Patients can then choose to avoid the potentially lengthy wait in queues and full waiting rooms, which can be distressing circumstances and that may cause angry confrontations. Staff members feel more relaxed, as tempers remain calmer, and the invisible queue is managed in an orderly fashion with the ‘MediCall’ Paging System and TouchClean-treated pagers.
    
A hospital also needs to consider the welfare and safety of its visitors and patients. Fire and emergency evacuations needs to be well managed, if needed. Immediate, reliable communication between medical staff and security is another requirement. Protecting all hospital workers and visitors from harm and deterring unwelcome intruders are third and fourth.
    
Communications systems, perhaps surprisingly, play a role in all these areas. Staff carrying pagers can quickly be alerted to opening fire doors, unexpected entries to restricted areas, emergencies and urgent calls for assistance. An integrated, wireless communications system can monitor all the building alarms and fire panel signals, automatically alerting the appropriate staff, or fire service, when needed.

Keeping the Wrong People out
At a greater level of sophistication when high security and protection is needed, Radio Frequency ID (RFID) systems can manage individuals’ access rights, and prevent exits or ingress as appropriate. By wearing an RFID tag (ID card or wristband), patients at risk of absconding or whose mental capacity makes them incapable of caring for their personal safety, can be given appropriate but curtailed freedom in the establishment. For example, they may be able to visit the day room and cloakroom facilities but not to exit by any door.
    
Sophisticated versions of this system enable their access rights to be dependent on the proximity of their carer. So, for example, when the patient approaches a door on his/her own, it remains closed, when approaching with an authorised staff member, it opens.
    
Similarly, access control systems prevent entry by unauthorised personnel to specific areas. Fingerprint readers are the technology at the forefront but have greatly advanced in the past year. By using multi spectral imaging (MSI), many of the problems of older systems are overcome and these systems are also vandal-resistant.
 
Site-wide concerns
Hospitals also have a wider remit and need to manage their premises as well as the people using them. Sometimes they operate on complex sites and from multiple buildings. Remaining open to authorised users, while deterring entry by unauthorised people, is a constant requirement that modern, advanced technology can assist and greatly improve.
    
Access control and entry systems, video surveillance and perimeter management are the key technologies in this. Current IP technology allows wireless IP CCTV systems to be deployed in lower security areas. Wired systems will be necessary where greater reliability and continuous operation is essential. Coupled with advanced intelligent video analytics, CCTV plays an important role in securing the premises itself as well as the perimeter; analytics software analyses live CCTV footage to look for certain pre-defined behaviours within each scene such as crowd formation, loitering, unattended baggage, missing objects  and can alert security personnel as the event is happening.
 
Perimeter Protection
In many circumstances, double knock perimeter protection is the wisest choice. Challenges generally operate on the onion skin principle, using physical obstacles, buried sensors and CCTV surveillance, accompanied by scene analysis, combining to frustrate intruders and alert facility managers, security personnel and/or police.
    
Video analytics can prevent perimeter intrusion and create sterile zones that automatically alert security operatives to unauthorised incursions across boundaries or into controlled areas.
Other approaches, such as vibration and volumetric detection, play a role in securing large perimeters but false alarms can result, notably with buried sensor cables, since large animals can trigger the system and calibration for weight becomes a delicate issue.
    
Controlling access to the buildings can then be managed using access control systems of varying complexity. Some more advanced systems communicate with CCTV such that a snapshot can be taken of staff members or visitors when they touch a reader.

A ‘triggers and actions’ function allows SMS messages, or e-mails, to be sent when a specified trigger happens. When a named individual presents a fob to certain doors, a manager or supervisor receives a message. Similarly, when a door is forced, a facilities manager might receive a message.
    
Call Systems Technology and its sister company, Security Systems Technology, have the accreditation and the expertise to assist healthcare users in all these areas discussed.
 
For more information:
Web: www.call-systems.com