Why Security is Such an Important Factor for Healthcare Facilities

Why Security Must Remain a Top Priority for Healthcare Facilities

The primary responsibility of any healthcare organisation is to protect the people within it. This includes patients and their visitors, and the staff. All hospitals, surgeries, and pharmacies must ensure that everybody is in the safest possible environment.

Preventing intruders who might be violent towards staff and patients, abductions of vulnerable patients, and anti-social or violent behaviour between staff and patients are all of prime importance.

Another critical aspect that needs protecting within healthcare facilities is patient records. In 2022, data privacy is a prime risk in almost any business or organisation, however healthcare records are particularly vulnerable due to their resale value. In fact, in recent years, the UK’s health sector has suffered the largest number of breaches of any sector.

This is a result of the value that criminals can extract from full health records. While they sell on the market for almost 50% more than bank details, they also allow criminals to create fake passports, prescriptions, and other documents. Preventing the theft of these documents and data from healthcare facilities is absolutely essential.

The final crucial prevention that healthcare organisations need is equipment theft. Technology inside of hospitals and surgeries is often extremely expensive, giving criminals a lucrative opportunity to win big if they spot a vulnerable building. An absence of security measures only creates more opportunity for criminal activity.

Why Are Healthcare Facilities So Difficult to Secure?

Healthcare buildings face the unique challenge of needing to strike a balance between openness and strict security protocols. Buildings and facilities need to remain extremely accommodating to patients and their visitors at virtually all times, making it difficult to monitor who is entering and to prevent intruders with ill intent.

Whilst security is crucial, it can often suffer under this focus on patient and visitor service, making it easier for criminals to breach and for incidents around the site to occur.

How Can You Best Secure a Healthcare Facility?

Access control systems are by far the most effective way to reduce crime, theft, and incidents around healthcare buildings. By creating a comprehensive system that covers the entire site, it becomes much easier to track who is entering and leaving, and to avoid any potential threats.

• Secured Staff Entrances

Making sure all staff entrances are only accessible with a staff ID automatically closes off the majority of access points to patients, visitors, and therefore potential threats.

• Monitored Patient/Visitor Entrances

Having prevented general access to any staff entrances, buildings are left with visitor and patient entrances to secure. Although this can be much harder due to the volume of people and the lack of ability to set up an ID badge system, by creating a reception area that all visitors must pass, facilities can monitor activity more carefully. Especially if security staff and cameras are utilised to strengthen these otherwise vulnerable access points.

• Monitored Car Parks

Setting up CCTV systems in carparks alone can act as enough of a deterrent to prevent theft or criminals from parking there. This immediately reduces the risks of intruders who are now less likely to enter your building without a vehicle nearby.

• Gates

Finally, installing gates and barriers around the site in carparks and at common access points further reduces the likelihood of criminals and unauthorised visitors from ever entering. Due to the increased difficulty of entering and leaving, enough of a deterrent is there to prevent a large portion of would-be incidents.