At an IFSEC seminar, installer and manufacturer described their sides of the CCTV upgrade at one of Britain’s best-known hospitals: Great Ormond Street (GOSH).
They were Carl Pace, the MD of Norfolk-based Check Your Security (CYS) and David Petrook of DVTel. Like many hospitals, GOSH over the years had come to have a disparate and old analogue CCTV system; the control room, likewise, found it had difficulty in gaining footage of incidents. Again like other hospitals GOSH, in the centre of London – postcode WC1 – was open to the public, besides having a high profile, and children as its patients.
Carl, an Australian with a background in IT, stressed the environmental audit report that his company did for GOSH. As with other such audits that the installers will do for clients, among the aims was to show the site managers what equipment they already had, and how well it was working; and so to better proceed towards what the site managers wanted. Indeed, CYS was brought in first to do the report. Carl stressed that it was not just a site survey; he described it as ‘practical consulting’, ‘a roadmap’, an analysis of age and value of cameras, and how the CCTV in place could be integrated into any new CCTV. Just knowing what’s already in place, after perhaps different installers and maintainers of products over the years, can be an important benefit, Carl said. He stressed that his company does not push any particular product; at GOSH, the audit report gave a shortlist of eight systems.
Carl told the IFSEC seminar audience: “What became pretty clear was that they needed [in the control room] a bit more in terms of searches, and a modern system.” As Carl pointed out, many of the child patients are there for surgery from abroad; so CYS looked at the possibility of using CCTV for a non-security purpose besides protecting people and assets: whether concerned parents could view their children at Great Ormond Street remotely, over IP.
Another aim was to use the site’s existing IT infrastructure. GOSH wanted to use future technology as it became available; in a word, a new system had to be scalable. “It was extremely important to interface with IT, estates and security people,” the relevant departments at Great Ormond Street. Carl described his installation company as the ‘glue’ in between the three. Hospitals, Carl went on, need a register of their sites, to match that to their risk register, so that they can see if a particular camera is needed (or not), or more than one; what of the legacy system can stay, and what needs buying. A client might be taken to a site of a similar size, to see what others do. “I see ourselves as an educational company that happens to install IP systems,” Carl added. He showed the audience a bulky audit report that GOSH had, including colour photos of what a site camera picture looked like, so as to compare later with camera performance.
David Petrook whose company’s hardware and software was chosen, added that the products were open architecture, that could integrate with products; although the word ‘solution’ was over-used, that was why customers used the products. The manufacturer’s Latitude NVMS product can use (free) Google Earth, or GPS mapping, and send alarms with location to a security guard’s Android or iPad or other hand-held device. Integration can also be, for example, with alarmed fencing, or Stentofon telephones.
Summing up, Carl Pace described GOSH as ‘a model for IP video’, deployed with a minimum of interference to hospital patients and staff. The hospital did not want to look like a jail with intimidating cameras; and it has a platform for adding, if chosen, facial recognition or automatic number plate recognition.
About the installer: CYS’ install at University Campus Suffolk in Ipswich featured in our March 2010 issue, and Southend hospital in September 2010. Other clients include University Of East Anglia and Great Yarmouth Port Company. Visit –
