Ensuring security of services

A central element in relation to a hospital’s level of risk, making it difficult in most cases to control access and identify trespassers, is the prescence of large, transient populations. In combination with several factors, such as possession of large amounts of property attractive to thieves and often emotionally charged conditions, the risks of potential breaches of security are greatly enhanced.

Costly crimes
It has been estimated that crime costs the NHS more than £1 million every week and health services face a variety of possible threats and risks. For example, the principal employees union, Unison, has said that almost nine out of ten health service staff worry about violence at work. Nurses are amongst the most at risk categories, facing the highest risk of violence of any occupational group except police officers. This high level of vulnerability also applies to lone health service workers making home visits, indicating the need to extend security planning beyond the immediate hospital environment.  
    
Each of these perceived threats can be significantly reduced by intelligent security solutions, although no amount of security technology can control crime unless it is suitable for its purpose, properly installed, correctly sited, well maintained, effectively operated, routinely reviewed in the light of changing risks and backed up by a wider culture of awareness and training.

Physical design
Firstly, it is important to understand that the physical design of hospital premises has an influence on the prevalence of crime. Sometimes it is possible to reduce crime by altering these so-called situational factors. A simple example of this can be found in many older hospitals, where outdated car parking provision frequently results in a proliferation of small, isolated parking areas that are virtually impossible to protect cost-effectively.
    
Not surprisingly, the opportunity to work unobserved and with little risk of interruption attracts thieves, as well as posing particular risks to drivers parking at night in remote parts of the grounds. Several hospitals have now addressed this problem by changing the use of available land to provide fewer, larger parking areas that can be protected cost-effectively by the combined use of lighting, security patrolling and modern closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance systems.
 
Electronic security
CCTV is also a valuable security tool inside hospitals. A cutting edge digital CCTV system supplied by one BSIA member is helping to improve security for staff and patients at Basildon Hospital in Essex.
    
The NHS Foundation Trust upgraded its analogue set up for digital video recorders. CCTV cameras provide comprehensive surveillance of key areas within a site. Depending on the location, they may be monitored by on-site security staff, remotely via an alarm receiving station, or linked to a recording device to deter and provide evidence for later investigation of events. The advent of digital CCTV technology has both reduced the cost of this type of protection and enabled a wide range of new possibilities for communicating high quality visual images over long distances.
    
Again, although it is not always practical to alter the situational factors that contribute to crime, an understanding of their impact is always a key factor in good security planning. One example of this is found in places where people can legitimately be present en-route to other destinations within a hospital. The basis of this problem is that because the presence of strangers is not usual, members of staff do not question it and therefore a lot of risk exists in such areas, as opposed to ‘cul-de-sacs’ or departments where access is controlled.
    
Access control systems, intruder alarms for areas that are locked out of hours, and panic buttons with remote monitoring all prove beneficial for such areas to reduce the risks of ‘walk-in’ theft and undetected burglary or robbery, whilst portable panic buttons can help both to protect and reassure individual members of staff.

Identity theft
More recently the large amount of media attention around recent public sector breaches of security have highlighted the potential threat of identity fraud and the ways in which health organisations should prevent themselves from falling victim to this crime. The importance of ensuring adequate procedures for handling, storing and the destruction of patient and staff data, for example, is also an important security consideration the health sector has to allow for.
    
The sheer size of health organisations means that the potential for lapses to occur is multiplied tenfold. Many trusts have already deployed, for example, encryption on laptops and other devices to secure data at the end point. Lancashire Care NHS Trust, for example, has rolled out a secure system to help prevent data breaches through senstive data transferred and stored on USB devices by assigning user access rights, blocking any unauthorised attempts to download data and encrypting all downloaded data.
    
Data loss prevention technology (DLP) can work in conjunction with encryption or access control solutions to provide a more strategic, long term data security solution for NHS Trusts, enabling organisations to understand where confidential data is stored, and how sensitive data might leave an organisation (and under what circumstances).

Security personnel
In each of these aspects of hospital security, the key issue is professional on-site advice about the identification and reduction of risk. Effective security solutions do not come in ready-made, off-the-shelf formats, they need to be tailored to individual buildings and circumstances. This is true of security guarding services, in-house staff training and security technology alike.
    
The interface between security guarding services and technology is critical, since the means to detect problems must obviously go hand-in-hand with the ability to respond to them. Some locations, for example, can be well protected by alarms and cameras monitored from a remote location, combined, in some cases, with a programme of random patrol visits. Although hospitals will generally warrant a permanent security team, well-planned integration with security and communications technology can be cost-effective.
    
Security officers are at the front line of security and work well within a healthcare setting due to the reassurance their presence brings and the deterrent value that they offer. It is far better for a would-be thief or troublemaker to decide the risk is too great to act as a result of the presence of a uniformed officer, than take a chance – something that can sometimes be lacking with covert security.
    
Security officers protect people and property in a wide variety of environments and currently, the private security industry is working hard to provide additional resources to the public sector through what is known as the wider policing family. The growing responsibility of security personnel has been reflected by the regulation of the security guarding sector which ensures the compulsory licensing under the Private Security Industry Act 2001, of individuals working in specific sectors of private security.

Staff protection
In many hospitals medical staff may work alone at night or during the weekends. This can have a negative effect on staff morale if crime is prevalent in the area or in the hopsital itself. With this in mind, lone worker systems can give both the medical staff peace of mind that the lone worker deivce will ensure assistance is swiftly provided if required, but also aids the hospital management in meeting its requirements of providing a safe working environment for its staff.
    
There are many different types of lone worker systems and a comprehensive risk assessment is needed to determine which one is best suited to meet the user’s needs.

Economic issues
In the midst of an uncertain economic climate, many public sector organisations will be under further pressure and therefore understandably concerned about the effects of the ‘credit crunch’. Whilst hard times often result in belt tightening and budget slashing, models from the last recession suggest violent crime is set to grow at a rate of 19 per cent while theft and burglaries could rise by 7 per cent in 2008 and 2 per cent in 2009.
    
Based on previous experience therefore, trusts should certainly be ensuring stringent security measures are in place for both patients and staff. An investment in security will help make long-term savings and protect existing assets as a change in economy does not mean that there will be a reduced risk to organisations. Health organisations would therefore greatly benefit from a comprehensive risk assessment, which would not only seek to ensure fundamental security solutions to meet anticipated risks, but also in the most cost-effective way possible, also identifying existing systems which may not be performing at their most efficient.
     
The hospital environment is a challenging area to secure, but a measured approach incorporating professionally trained security personnel and modern security equipment can create a safer working environment, and a culture where crime – in whatever form – is not tolerated. There is no question that purchasing quality security is an investment worth making.

The British Security Industry Association is the only trade association that covers all aspects of the professional security industry in the UK. Its 570+ members provide over 70 per cent of UK security products and services and adhere to strict quality standards.

For more information
See www.bsia.co.uk, e-mail info@bsia.co.uk or telephone 0845 3893889