Chelsea and Westminster roll out thermal screening tech following pilot

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust have rolled out thermal screening technology across its hospitals following a successful pilot.

The pilot was part of the trust’s CW Innovation programme, run jointly with its charity CW+. Chelsea and Westminster approached ThermaFY at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak to codevelop and install automated temperature scanning stations at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and West Middlesex University Hospital to help reduce the spread of infection.

As a result, ThermaFY Protect was developed and provided thermal screening which combines temperature readings with staff identification.

The pilot involved six ThermaFY Protect screens being installed across the trust’s main hospital sites. The trust is now looking to roll out the programme at all hospital entrances and off-site clinics.

Dominic Conlin, hospital director at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, said: “We are delighted to have been able to collaborate on this unique project, testing and scaling ThermaFY Protect across the trust to improve patient and staff safety.

“Its visibility as soon as anyone enters one of our buildings is pivotal, improving confidence in our stringent infection control measures. Furthermore, the technology allows us to develop the approach for multiple scenarios.”

ThermaFY Protect screens use a thermal camera which operates from a distance and uses face recognition to build a heat map of a person to calculate body temperatures within seconds, replacing the need for hand-held devices.

Using a combination of temperature readings, staff IDs and patient or visitor QR codes, the system also provides valuable data for the hospital as it deals with Covid-19 and other infections.

Amanda Pickford, founder and chief executive of ThermaFY, added: “It’s been fantastic working with the team at Chelsea and Westminster, who share our entrepreneurial vision and have acted quickly and collaboratively to improve patient and staff safety.

“During the first pilot, our systems scanned over 500,000 people; now the stations are a permanent feature, scanning over 8,000 patients and staff every day putting patient and staff safety at the centre.”

This partnership is one of a long line of collaborations as part of the CW Innovation programme. This includes imaging technology that allows patients to securely share pictures of skin conditions and the Mum and Baby App.