An electronic key-based access control system has been installed in Mayday University Hospital, Croydon, to provide security and audit-trail accountability in several departments throughout the hospital.
Mayday University Hospital is a busy district general hospital that operates a 24 hour accident and emergency. The hospital is aiming to become an NHS Foundation Trust in 2008. NHS Foundation Trusts are new healthcare organisations that are firmly in the NHS, but allow more freedoms and control to meet the needs of local people and how their healthcare is developed and delivered,
As for security, Mayday like many hospitals found that a large, transient population makes it difficult in many cases to control access and identify trespassers. This basic vulnerability combined with several other considerations, such as the fact that a variety of hospital property also has ordinary domestic uses, or is otherwise usable outside healthcare, especially medicines and drugs – makes it attractive to thieves. And given the fact that most stolen property is eily disposable, this can mean that crime in hospitals goes unreported.
The Estates and Projects Department at Mayday decided to upgrade by installing the Intellikey system throughout the hospital. It’s now fitted to the operating theatres, maternity and pathology departments, doctors on call rooms, doctor’s residence buildings, post graduate medical centre, parent’s accommodation suite, the call centre, computer suite, facilities building and energy centre.
The Estates & Projects Department said: ‘We wanted a high quality electronic access control product to replace our previous mechanical Master key system. With this we were experiencing a number of problems with key control and in some instances security was increasingly being breached by copied keys or even keys given to unauthorised members of staff. To stop this happening we wanted a stand-alone system; one that was not only more secure, but was also more intelligent and provided a full range of management features.’
As a teaching hospital, Mayday has large numbers of new doctors coming in to finish training as well as locums working in the hospital for a few days at a time. One of the benefits of using Intellikey is that the hospital can now issue the locum with his or her own key and programme it to work just for the period the doctor is working in the hospital. If the key is lost or not handed back when the doctor finishes working, it can be deleted from the system without the worry of someone else finding and using it to try and gain unauthorised access.
Another benefit is that Intellikey also enables the hospital to operate an auto lock/unlock system on the doors within the hospital. This works by allowing them to set up certain doors to open during key hours, such as 7am to 6pm, and outside those hours lock automatically with a key being needed to gain access.
Bernard Morton, Managing Director of Intellikey Ltd says: “Mayday University Hospital wanted a key based access control system that could be used in all their doors as well as for parking, lift and barrier control. Since Intellikey contains intelligence in both the key and the lock, it is suitable for use on all perimeter entry points as well as for other security sensitive areas or installations. Until deciding to upgrade their security, the estates department at the hospital had been spending considerable sums replacing breached or faulty locks, but since fitting Intellikey they’ve saved money on lock replacement costs and improved security with full access trail accountability.”
