Birmingham City Hospital sought to address the risk of assaults against NHS staff, and to provide major incident control software, before the 2012 Olympics. ISM recommended Genesys2, their security management software. Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital NHS Trust were exploring options for a lock-down system at City Hospital. In the event of a major incident such as widespread contamination or an assault against a staff member, they had to be able to lock-down the accident and emergency department.
The brief from the trust required instant and simultaneous lock-down in the assigned areas and perform partial, portable, progressive or full lock-down from one control point. It had to use the hospital’s access control and have an ‘access override’ feature restricted to authorised NHS staff. Given the widespread austerity imposed on public services, the system had to be cost effective with low maintenance costs. It had to show cost efficiencies through a better, more targeted use of security and other staff; and it had to be scalable.
Peter Finch, Security Advisor at the Trust said: “I am delighted with the work of ISM. We can now lockdown a number of doors simultaneously within our lockdown profile at City Hospital in a split second. This is vital if we are to protect our patients, our staff and members of the public, not to mention our hospital site from the impact of a terrorist attack or a major incident.” With Genesys2 installed, phase two is now in progress. He adds: “Genesys integrates with our existing access control system which is vital. It means we only need deploy minimal security resources to maintain the security of our site and we can protect our healthcare delivery from unanticipated interruptions.”
