Protecting the vulnerable

The West London NHS Mental Health Trust has chosen Illuminex's Xscape intelligent emergency lighting products as part of the refurbishment of the Secure Unit at St Bernard's Hospital, Southall.

The patients who are looked after in the Secure Unit suffer from a variety of illnesses, some of which mean their behaviour can lead to self-harm or damage to other people or property, so safety and security considerations were paramount when deciding on the equipment to be used in the facility upgrade.

The Xscape Series of intelligent emergency mini-downlighters use high performance energy-efficient solid state LED light sources that not only save energy, but, of particular importance in the secure unit, are controlled from a remote electronics and battery pack so that only 4 VDC is present at the downlighter, ensuring there is no potential shock hazard to the patients. The entire Xscape family offers considerable labour and energy cost savings and is an environmentally friendly range of products that present no end-of-life disposal problems. Each light unit is addressable and fully intelligent, self-testing at the prescribed intervals defined by BS5266 automatically, saving considerable labour costs throughout the working life of the system. The test data is stored within the luminaire itself and communicated to its local monitoring panel.  The system in the Secure Unit can also be integrated into the main Trend building automation system, provides full monitoring
 of the status of each luminaire from a remote location.

The Secure Unit upgrade is part of the first phase of a planned major refurbishment of the site to be carried out during the next twelve months.