Hospital security managers have gathered in Birmingham for the annual, two-day NAHS (National Association for Healthcare Security) conference. Mark Rowe offers a digest of day one.
A reminder for me of how the protection of healthcare premises is tied up with other sectors came when I took a right turn instead of a left at University station in Birmingham. Instead of heading straight for the NAHS venue, the University of Birmingham, I had a look at the neighbouring Queen Elizabeth Hospital, including a medical school. The overlap between students and hospitals was reflected in the attendance at NAHS of the chair of the university security managers’ association Aucso, Ollie Curran of University College London (which also has a considerable teaching hospital as a neighbour). One of the day’s speakers was Dawn Dines of the charity Stamp Out Spiking, featured in the December edition of Professional Security Magazine as a double winner in the Dave Clark Awards, presented by the umbrella body the Security Commonwealth at the Security TWENTY show at Heathrow this month.
Her talk on the ‘disgusting’ crime of spiking prompted at least one NAHS member to reflect that student nurses are not only aware of the risk of having their drinks spiked when on a night out, but accept it. Only on Monday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer proposed making spiking a criminal offence; this fits into the wider, cross-party agenda of work on violence against women and girls (VAWG).
Martyn’s Law
Counter terrorism loomed large on day one, as speakers included a pair from the Home Office to report the latest on the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, TPOP for short, better known as Martyn’s Law, that will place a legal responsibility on premises – buildings – to take measures to counter terrorism, including hospitals and retail (and where, as so often on hospital campuses, there’s a shop and restaurant also, the responsible person for the main use of the premises shall have the legal responsibility under TPOP).
Arguably the most important point made by the Home Office official was that once the law passes Parliament and is given Royal Assent, presumed in spring 2025, it will not come into force for ‘at least’ 24 months. That’s for giving time for the proposed regulator and inspector, the Security Industry Authority, to ‘stand up’. Paul Fullwood of the SIA is among the day two speakers.
NHS standards
Arguably the most promising story to come out of last year’s conference, was that the central standards-setting body NHS England was at work on security management – offering the prospect of a replacement of some kind for NHS Protect, the security management body shut down in 2017. However an update only informed NAHS not to expect progress any time before 2026.
Nactso update
A speaker from the UK official counter-terrorism office Nactso gave an update, reminding attenders of the November 2019 bomb that went off in a taxi outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital; and the case of a student nurse arrested in January 2023 outside the maternity ward of St James’s Hospital, who was convicted at Sheffield Crown Court in July of preparing acts of terrorism.
Care Quality
Any association’s conference is about updating members on forthcoming law, and threats, whether faced by private security or the sector that’s protected. Roger Ringham, NAHS chairman, in his welcome to the event said: “Violence and aggression towards staff remain the most significant concerns.” That was reflected in some of the day’s speakers, from NHS England, and separately from the regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC). They gave a reminder that clinicians, like security staff, are there to care for patients. The background, as always is that hospitals are busy, especially entering winter, as NHS England recently publicised; and security departments have to justify their budgets, which clinical departments could always find use for.
Security officers may only have a fleeting relationship with a patient, whether in mental health distress, or with learning difficulties or autism; but if security staff can enable the patient to feel safe, that will be critical in terms of the patient’s experience while in hospital, and the outcome of their treatment. The speakers from the CQC spoke of ‘restrictive practice’, whether denying patients something that they want (fresh air except at set times) or making them do something they don’t want (to wear handcuffs, or be restrained by chemical means). The CQC still sees poor practice, and use of restrictive practice as a form of punishment, let alone to inflict pain.
The day rounded off with presentations from the police scheme Secured by Design, and the event sponsors CriticalArc (who provide the incident response software SafeZone) and the body worn video camera manufacturer Axon (who gave a case study from a London hospital setting out how body worn can not only provide evidence of use when security staff face complaints that they’ve acted heavy handedly, but can provide a control room with an officer’s location, to aid dispatch of other officers to an incident). The event compere, the criminologist Prof Martin Gill, ably ran the day and (not the least important thing) finished it on time for drinks and networking. Further networking will come tonight after the conference close, at a black tie dinner and awards ceremony.
