Nineteen mental health units located throughout the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust estate now feature IP network-based video monitoring systems from Samsung Techwin – giving the ability to unobtrusively monitor patient activity.
The Trust offers specialist mental healthcare services across Norfolk and Suffolk. Although some of its mental health units are secure, most allow free movement of patients. “We are committed to the ‘Safewards’ initiative’, a key aim of which is to reduce rates of conflict in inpatient mental health settings,” explained Mark Milliard, capital projects manager. “We believe smart technology such as IP network-based video monitoring can play a major role. Our existing, old analogue systems have become increasingly unreliable, and we decided to replace them with IP network-based systems. Being able to transmit images over the network enables any authorised user to view live or recorded video captured by any camera from their PC. This provides considerably more monitoring flexibility than with the analogue CCTV systems, which could only transmit captured images to a central location.”
He added: “It made sense to source the cameras from just one manufacturer, and, ongoing maintenance-wise, to deploy the minimum possible number of different models.” His evaluation of a large number of manufacturers resulted in a shortlist of two, from which Samsung Techwin emerged as the winner. He explained: “I was particularly impressed with the image quality from the Samsung Techwin cameras, and that each could be configured to multi-stream images at different frame rates and different resolutions.”
Mark Milliard established that only three Samsung Techwin cameras would need to be specified to provide coverage of areas both inside and outside all 19 mental health units. All three models are part of the Samsung Techwin WiseNetIII camera range, and include the SNV-6084R vandal-resistant 2 MP full HD network dome camera, with built-in IR LEDs to enable images of any activity to be captured, regardless of lighting conditions. He also selected the SNO-6084R weather-resistant bullet cameras, equipped with a motorised varifocal lens and built-in IR illuminators, and the SNV-6012 2 MP full HD vandal-resistant flat dome camera.