“Gone are the Days When Ex-Police or Ex-Military Automatically Landed Plum Security Roles”: meet an NHS head of security

Former NHS security adviser Peter Finch reflects on the growing professionalisation of the security industry generally and the NHS in particular.

Finch, who was a security adviser at Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals NHS at the time of this interview, is now head of security at Coventry Building Society.

Joining the Royal Air Force as an RAF Policeman in 1978, he later became provost officer in 1986, specialising in counter intelligence and undertaking counter-terrorism, nuclear security and Royal protection duties. Read about his earlier career protecting nuclear weapons and managing NHS security during the Handsworth riots in part one of this interview, From Greenham Common to Riots in A&E: My Life in Security.

IFSEC Global: How has your role changed over the years?

Peter Finch: In 2003 the NHS introduced the security management service. Before that there hadn’t been a formal group of people who were properly responsible for policy and operational development and security management in the NHS.

I’m on the board of the counter security service and there’s been a considerable change in how security management is delivered in the NHS since they came along.

We’re also monitored by the Care Quality Commission and the NHS litigation authority who also have security management standards with which we need to comply.

So security standards in the NHS have improved over the last decade.

IG: Any improvements you’d like to see?

PF: I’d like to see more done on training and development of our security officers. I’d also like to see some standards introduced about using physical intervention to deal with our more challenging, sometimes violent patients.

We don’t have an agreed level of training for physical intervention. And it does concern me that our security officers are called upon too much by nursing staff to carry out a physical intervention – often continuing their medical care too by giving them water or arranging their clothing – when better communication with the patient may actually have avoided the requirement for physical intervention in the first place.

IG: The industry is becoming increasingly professionalised…

PF: Gone are the days when you get a security management role on the basis that you’re an ex-police or ex-military.

The world is moving on, technology is moving on, security managers must move on. We need professional development, we need academic qualifications, you need vocational qualifications.

You look back at the old days of a security guard – and it’s a phrase I absolutely hate – there was a perception of the old man in a flat cap with a flask, sitting at the gate.

Now you look in my control room with digital CCTV technology, automated lock-down systems controlled by the security controller from a graphic user interface, digital communications systems, car parking systems.

IG: We published an article on IFSEC Global arguing that there are few young people entering the industry…

PF: Well I could counter that. At the Security Institute we’ve just created a CPD course with the University of Leicester and recruited 500 students.

So there’s ex-military and police looking forward to a career in security, but hundreds of youngsters coming out of  university with degrees in security, security management and risk, business continuity, security and emergency management.

IG: So do you think the ex-police officers and ex-military might be over confident of their transferrable skills?

PF: They may have transferable skills but have they got the knowledge these youngsters have?

A lot of people my age – I’m 55 – have no academic or vocational qualifications whatsoever. There are probably 350-odd security management directors in the NHS and I wouldn’t mind betting that 99% have no academic or vocational skills whatsoever.

At the moment security management directors are given the title in addition to their primary role.

My security management director is the chief nurse, for example.

IG: Wow. So what does their security brief entail?

PF: Well they lead on security managers, security management issues at board level, but it doesn’t mean they actually understand the complexity, the breath of security management.

Read about Peter Finch’s earlier career protecting nuclear weapons and managing NHS security during the Handsworth riots in part one of this interview, From Greenham Common to Riots in A&E: My Life in Security.