A case study of Nelson Health Centre in Merton, south west London, being developed on the site of the former Nelson Hospital on Kingston Road. NHS Merton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has been leading on the planning of the clinical services at the facility and is working with the appointed service providers to equip and prepare the building for when it opens its doors to patients on April 1.
Specified and installed was electronic access control from the manufacturer SALTO Systems. While like other medical buildings Nelson’s managers seek to welcome patients, granting public access, including routes linking departments, entry to many back of house areas and other rooms needs to be restricted for the protection of staff, patients and property, to prevent crime, especially given that medical products and pharmaceuticals are usually stored on the premises. But managers in the health service are also required to address the law: such as the Health and Safety at Work Act, the Occupiers Liability Act and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations impose a duty of care. And under data protection laws the site must guard personal information, such as patient medical records.
The access control solution was supplied, installed and commissioned by local SALTO Partner TMB Systems Group. Managing Director, Tony Burton, says “Our brief was to design and install a secure, flexible and cost effective access control solution that was simple to use to meet both the NHS and end user’s needs. To achieve this we recommended SALTO Systems and their battery operated wire free XS4 platform. As the premier healthcare-tailored access control system used in hospitals all over the world, one of the biggest benefits of the SALTO XS4 solution is that it needs no hard wiring. Removing the need to cable saves time, hassle, disruption and, not least, significant sums of money, which is always important in an NHS project. Given the modern open plan design of the new centre it was also important that the security products fitted blended seamlessly with the design ethos and architecture of the building.
“This has been achieved with a mix of off-line and online doors, and now 62 high profile doors at the centre are fitted with off-line networked XS4 handle sets in an attractive stainless steel finish. These include medical supply, medical room and surgical room doors, and these are supplemented by 37 online networked controllers.
“The controllers utilise SALTO Virtual Network (SVN) software to enable the doors and their operating Mifare smart cards to be updated throughout the site and access profiles of staff to be changed rapidly as required adding real value to the access management of the centre.
“Another important consideration for the centre was the fact that they wanted to control everything on-site with just a single card system. This means staff do not have to carry multiple cards around with them and using a multi-function card can provide a wide range of user benefits. We’re now implementing this so that the access control and pay on foot parking systems are integrated and work together. In addition, we’re also in early discussions with the centre with regard to using the cards for vending and photocopy machine use as well.”
SALTO says that its SVN product eliminates the physical restrictions of traditional stand alone electronic doors and can integrate with other third party systems if required, while allowing the centre’s smart cards and locks to be updated, restricted or deleted remotely. The cards build up ‘on-card’ audit trails through normal use.
David Hill, Area Manager, SALTO Systems says: “The vision for the Nelson Health Centre is to bring a wide range of health and care services closer to the local community and reduce trips to hospital. Their wish to implement modern technology to provide security for both the building and its staff is in line with our mission to provide excellent services to our healthcare customers. Their smart cards can be programmed to allow access to specific rooms or areas within the centre for selected periods only, with the doors auto locking at pre-specified times if required. A couple of features of the systems they particularly like are blacklisting and staff roll call, and the fact that if key security is breached due to the loss of a card, it can be instantly deleted without the need or cost of changing locks – saving Nelson Health Centre time and money.”
About the centre
Funded through a NHS Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT), a Private Public Partnership which has been developed with South London Health Partnerships Ltd (SLHP), the new centre will be a BREEAM (Health) excellent rated building. It has a full height glass entrance atrium and inside, colour coded departments and self check in screens.
Two local GP practices, The Cannon Hill Lane Medical Practice and The Church Lane Practice, are relocating. The centre will provide outpatient treatment in areas such as General medicine, General surgery, Gynaecology, Respiratory medicine, Rheumatology, Dermatology, Trauma and Orthopaedics, Diabetes, Cardiology, Urology, Colorectal surgery, Gastroenterology and Ophthalmology (provided by Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust ) as well as a host of other diagnostic and community services.
