Looking to a safer, securer future

Given anecdotal evidence about increasing public “anger” about a range of issues, plus a frenetic environment where not only may patients be kept waiting considerable time, but relatives may be suffering significant anxiety and stress, it is hardly surprising that the average acute hospital A&E department is a veritable potential cauldron for incidents ranging from outbreaks of swearing at staff to, in severe cases, violent episodes requiring the police to step in. With today’s growing trend for outsourcing key FM services, managing security in such a volatile environment may not always now be a task undertaken directly by healthcare estates and facilities personnel. However, very few estates teams will have no involvement in overseeing security, while for many, managing a complement of in-house security staff, or monitoring an external security company’s performance, will all be part of the job. Leon Barwell, commercial director at leading security supplier VSG (which claims to be one of the UK’s top five manned security services providers), points out that, with any member of the public able to walk in to a large hospital, where, unless challenged, they then have “virtually free rein” to walk around at will, the healthcare estate is a potential security minefield. Not only are staff, patients and visitors at risk, but numerous potentially saleable items provide opportunist thieves with the chance to steal not just physically valuable assets, but equally ones, such as laptops, that may well contain highly sensitive data.

Violence against staff

While adequately protecting such equipment, and a raft of potentially dangerous drugs, remains a key part of the job for estates and security personnel, Leon Barwell is convinced that, today, the most pressing (security) issue “in virtually every case” is violence against staff and, “to a lesser extent”, patients. He says: “In the worst cases, violence levels can be quite shocking, with an understandable temptation to try to deal with incidents by simply deploying more security officers.” In his view, however, this “unsophisticated” approach simply rapidly escalates costs, while there is also no guarantee that a larger security team will be any more effective. “Much more important” than the number of security officers, he says, are their skills and how well they make use of them. “All security officers must now be licensed by the Security Industry Authority (SIA) in accordance with The Private Security Industry Act 2001 and its subsequent amendments,” he explains. (the NHS Security Management Service says this requirement does not, however, apply to manned guards employed in-house “unless their activities are in relation to [SIA] licensed premises”, a situation VSG says is “not ideal and represents something of an anomaly”). “To satisfy the SIA requirements,” Leon Barwell continues, “officers must receive a minimum three days’ basic security training, plus a further day on conflict management. They must then pass an examination, the standard of which is independently verified by NOCN, the National Open College Network. Finally, before awarding a licence to a security officer, the SIA must undertake a CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check to verify that they have no criminal record.”