Staff from the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust were multiple winner in the NAHS 2025 awards, presented at The Slate on the University of Warwick campus, to close the National Association for Healthcare Security’s two-day event.
As a finale, NAHS chairman Roger Ringham gave his chairman’s award to Dawn Dines of Stamp Out Spiking. Dawn is a founder and CEO of the charity, that promotes awareness of the threat; and offers training; and products to guard against spiking of drinks. The Crime and Policing Bill that’s going through Parliament is due to create a new ‘administering a harmful substance’ offence, to cover spiking. Dawn was a speaker on day two of the NAHS conference.
Double wins
Casey Browne of the Royal Free was winner in the diversity category, and highly commended in the women role model category, won by Helene Carlsson. SGC Security Services at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board were highly commended in the diversity category.
University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust was highly commended twice, for violence reduction and prevention (won by Assist Security Group) and innovation (won by Melville Jimmy Garber, of West London NHS Trust). Team, a popular category, was won by St Helier NHS, and highly commended were Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. Manager of the year: highly commended, Jordan Howard of GSTS, and the winner Lee Barnes of Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust. Another popular category, outstanding officer, won by Kofi Boayke Obeng Kyei, of Royal Free London; highly commended was Nana Udu, also of the Royal Free. Evening and day two conference compere was the criminologist Prof Martin Gill, of Perpetuity Research; and trophy sponsor and award presenter on stage was Claire Humble, pictured right with the St Helier team. Claire is founder of the training firm and consultancy Nuology; and is chair of the umbrella body the Security Commonwealth.
Judges
Among the panel of judges was Mark Rowe, editor of Professional Security Magazine. Before the proceedings, Prof Martin Gill reflected that the front line of healthcare security is under the microscope. He said: “Violence is an everyday threat; there aren’t many groups where every day you have to deal with violence. If you don’t do your job well, the consequences can be serious; worst case scenario is that people can be injured; worse than that, there could be fatalities. Celebrating success is no trivial matter. And it’s right to celebrate being good at what you do.”
Speakers
Among the day two conference speakers was the campaigner for Martyn’s Law – legally speaking the Terrorism (Prevention of Premises) Act, placing a legal requirement on premises and events to take measures to counter the threat of terrorism – Figen Murray, who was among the awards judges; and who attended the evening dinner with her husband Stuart. Counter-terrorism was a theme of the two days; another day two speaker was Heather Arrowsmith-Tosley of the UK official counter-terror police Nactso, who gave an update on two of the necessary ingredients for Martyn’s Law to come into force (as featured in the December 2025 edition of Professional Security Magazine): a ‘competent persons’ register, that premises could use to hire an adviser or consultant to help with compliance with Martyn’s Law; and a training course to qualify those advisers as competent. The event also had a briefing on the near-miss terrorist attack on Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trusts. Violence against staff and patients was another theme of the two days – as in previous years; Justine Sharpe and Abigail Fogarty (another awards judge) talked about the cost of litigation to the NHS, including after staff suffering injuries resulting from violence at work.
AUCSO
As the Leeds talk showed, healthcare has a connection with universities, through the teaching of medics; and for some years NAHS has had good links with AUCSO, the equivalent association for campus security managers. Among those at the awards dinner were from AUCSO the current and past chair, Geoff Brown (Leeds) and Ollie Curran (University College London) and Julie Barker, AUCSO’s COO. AUCSO has its 2026 conference at the University of Exeter from April 13 to 15.
More in the January 2026 edition of Professional Security Magazine.
