Guarding

Award for testing centres work

by Mark Rowe

SSGC was among winners at this week’s Security and Fire Excellence Awards, run this year virtually instead of as a dinner in London.

Swindon-based SSGC won in the the Security Partnering Initiative of the Year category, for its work with Serco, one of the outsourced services companies managing covid testing centres on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). SSGC teamed up with the Yorkshire Regiment Association to deploy former service personnel to help marshal queues at walk-in and drive-through test centres across the UK.

SSGC was also shortlisted for in the ‘Lockdown Hero’ and ‘Guarding Company of the Year’ categories. The awards, by exhibition companies IFSEC and Firex, were announced on Wednesday. SSGC recruited and deployed more than 4,000 staff inside weeks to marshal the testing centres as a supplier to Serco.

SSGC managing director David Stubbs, himself is a former military police officer. SSGC is among companies to have signed the Armed Forces Covenant (AFC), an undertaking to support the welfare and well-being of uniformed personnel who have served their country. He said: “This has been an incredible journey for SSGC. At the beginning of the year we were deploying personnel who were working around 54,000 hours per month and now we are scheduling 700,000-plus hours per month as a result of the pandemic.

He said: “The award is a recognition of the level of work and commitment which has gone into delivering on this contract in the national interest and is tribute to the former veterans who have been on this journey with us.”

Major Pat Ralph, chairman of the Yorkshire Regiment Association, said: “Our call to arms went out across the Yorkshire Regiments. The response was overwhelming. For our veterans, this is an opportunity to give something back to their communities, to get involved with like-minded people and, for many, new qualifications are also in the offing.”

Kate Davies, Director of Health and Justice and Armed Forces, said: “It’s fantastic that veterans are stepping up to support the country once again in the fight against COVID-19. We at NHS England and NHS Improvement are hugely grateful to them for providing their expertise and skillset at testing centres across England in this time of need.”

Jonathan Brasher OBE, operations director for the Serco-managed testing centres, said: “Serco has more than 50 years of proud history working with the Armed Forces in the UK and elsewhere.

“When Serco was asked by the DHSC to manage a number of the Covid-19 drive-through testing centres, we reached out to organisations such as SSGC to support us. We are delighted this has resulted in so many veterans working at the centres and, once again, making a valuable effort to the national effort, this time to tackle Covid-19.”

About SSGC

The SIA Approved Contractor was formed from an MBO in 2014; visit www.ssgc-net.com.

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