Based in Devon, Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust is one of the healthcare providers in the district offering a varied health care portfolio and specialising in community care. The current site comprises of a 300-bed ward in Barnstaple with the Trust looking at expanding its facilities in order to offer the highest possible care available to its patients.

The Challenge

In early 2013 the Hospital Facilities Management Team decided to review the access control system as the current system was ageing and becoming unreliable. Furthermore maintaining the current system using the maintenance team along with specialist contract support was proving to be inefficient and costly.

As the existing system was outdated with limited capacity to meet the healthcare’s plans for expansion, the management team decided to seek specialist advice from Challenge Alarm Systems for a robust and secure access control system that could accommodate the expansion plans.

The Solution

Challenge Alarm Services Ltd liaised with Genie on Northern Devon Healthcare Trust’s behalf and reviewed the Trusts requirements. The proposal was to use Genie’s Sphinx Door Access Control Panels and Proximity Readers. These systems are known for their reliability, robustness and their slim attractive design making it the ideal product for this project.

The Result

Since the Install Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust have been very pleased with the systems and the ability to monitor access and egress and improve patient safety by providing a safer and secure environment whilst monitoring staff activity.

“We were all very pleased with the equipment flexibility that was offered to meet the current needs and future expandability.”
Kevin Ward- Deputy Head of Estates

“What started as a relatively small system replacement of 10 controllers has now expanded to 48 controllers with main server and client PC and integration into the hospital staff car parking barriers.  The hospital Estates department now administer the day to day card user requests with ease, something that they couldn’t do with their previous system.The Genie equipment has now also  been rolled out across the community hospitals.”
Justin Dennis- Challenge Alarm Services