Ansador deliver huge system upgrade for Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children

Ansador installed Vanderbilt’s SiPass integrated access control system on close to 2,000 doors across the hospital’s 32 building estate.

Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) for Children is an internationally recognised centre of excellence for child healthcare located in the heart of Central London. The GOSH estate consists of 30 plus mixed purpose buildings contributing to the centre which provides the UK’s widest range of specialist health services for children.

During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, GOSH was recipient to one of the most extensive upgrades of a Vanderbilt system to have ever been undertaken. The project itself was managed and delivered by London based system integrator - Ansador Fire & Security, who are a key Gold member of Vanderbilt’s Aspire Partner Program. Ansador has specialised in the Healthcare sector for almost 40 years. Coincidentally, the company’s chairman Francis Davey led Vanderbilt’s Granta's installation in the hospital over 20 years previously. Now his son, Alex Davey (Managing Director), has managed the hospital’s upgrade to Vanderbilt’s SiPass integrated.

SiPass integrated is an intuitive access control system with a modern interface. The hospital’s requirements were specific and were particularly focused on the need for Covid-19 compliancy in order to not only upgrade their existing system, but to keep patients and staff as safe as possible when it came to the Pandemic, as well as security in general. The highest level of enterprise technology was key. As the hospital estate could not be rewired, SiPass integrated allowed for a straightforward upgrade using the same topology. The completed upgrade is now allowing the hospital’s security staff to monitor their entire system of nearly 2,000 access points across 32 buildings simultaneously from their control room. 

Ansador’s Managing Director, Alex Davey, states that this was one of the most challenging projects that Ansador has handled in 2020, due to both the global pandemic and the consistently changing operational requirements from an ever expanding estate.

The hospital site had seen exponential growth since the original Granta access control system was installed some 20 years ago. This meant that as more buildings were added to the site, the security system grew to become an integral part of the day-to-day operational systems used by the hospital.

Alex explains that after 20 years of system expansion, Ansador’s design team really needed to “get under the skin” of the system before even considering taking controllers offline. Through the design and development phase, the hospital’s security is now virtually a new system completely.

“We ended up replacing a majority of the cabling infrastructure, and we also became increasingly involved with the security network. This was well received by the client, who I think was rather surprised about how quickly they could receive their security information through this secure network facility. We were awarded the contract in late 2019 and mobilized in January 2020,” Alex points out. 

“When the COVID-19 pandemic hit London in February 2020, the projects team needed to adapt their delivery model and fast with a multitude of remote working and surveys being completed through HD video feeds being synchronized to our London HQ . Numerous secure remote networking facilities were created and the majority of equipment bench tested and programmed off site to reduce contact wherever possible.’’

This was a very tough project to manage during the onset of an unforeseen global pandemic in such a critical healthcare environment. As such, Ansador set the trend on what was to be expected by integrators operating during such times. However, Alex prefers to look at some of the positives learned from working during the pandemic’s lockdown. “COVID-19 has pried open scenarios for our clients to explore access control possibilities further. SiPass integrated has delivered so much flexibility for the client, allowing a future proof way forward with multiple system integrations including but not limited to CCTV, Intruder Alarms, cashless vending – the list goes on! These are benefits that we have now been able to clearly highlight and demonstrate to the hospital during the lockdown.”

Commenting on why Ansador enjoys working with Vanderbilt, Alex surmised: “Vanderbilt’s access control products are design-led solutions, and that’s something that we major in as well. Our business model starts with a cohesive design process so when we are talking to potential clients, we always start by evaluating what the client needs and why, because thanks to companies like Vanderbilt, we have a range of solutions to choose from that meet the majority of requirements on the market and that we can commission to fit our clients’ needs perfectly.”

For more information on the SiPass integrated installation at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, visit www.vanderbiltindustries.com or www.ansador.co.uk.