ABLOY UK has provided the London Ambulance Service with its PROTEC2 CLIQ access management system to improve medicine management, meet compliance regulations, and offer effective oversight of access for auditability.
The London Ambulance Service is the only NHS trust to serve the whole of London and the nine million people who live, work, or visit the city. They answer more than two million 999 calls and more than two million 111 calls a year, and treat 3000 people at the scene or over the phone every day, covering an area of 620 square miles, with over 9,600 staff and volunteers.
Well-governed management of access to controlled drugs is essential, especially with the urgent nature of the care they provide, and the magnitude of the estate. The trust required a flexible and easy-to-use access control system, with multiple access and skill levels across multiple locations.
Gavin Mooney, Advanced Paramedic Practitioner and Trust Medication Safety Officer at the London Ambulance Service, explains: “Our previous access control system wasn’t meeting our needs, as we had insufficient oversight of who had access to particular lockers or codes for the keys.
“We had to find a way in which paramedics could get access to drugs over a large geographical area, but we also needed to ensure the system was compliant, with auditability for security purposes.”
Abloy UK suggested its PROTEC2 CLIQ system – a key-based access management solution with multiple management options, and security for many access points via a wide range of wireless locks.
With PROTEC2 CLIQ, each member of staff is issued with an individual key, which can be activated via a wall or computer programming device at the start of a shift, giving access to areas and assets in accordance with their clearance.
Over 4000 keys were issued to London Ambulance Service paramedics, giving traceable access to drug cabinets at multiple stations across the whole estate.
Aaron Ballard-Ridley, Healthcare Vertical Specialist for Abloy UK, said: “The combination of products we provided fit into their pre-existing solution, giving the capability to manage a large estate by enabling new permissions or decommissioning a key instantaneously to ensure keys could not be used inappropriately.
“Blue light services can massively benefit from the PROTEC2 CLIQ solution, as the browser-based CLIQ Web Manager adds a remote management capability and transparency of key movement and access rights management with an audit trail feature. This is especially vital when managing a large geographical area, with a lot of moving parts and time pressure.”
Gavin added: “We had to be sure that the system had no impact on our response times and no difference in start of shift processes, while still providing the capability to have of oversight of access to medicines – and that’s exactly what the PROTEC2 CLIQ solution by Abloy does.”
