Security technology firm TSSI has been named Best Healthcare Implementation category winner at the coveted Advanced Card Awards.

Based at Groundwell Industrial Park in Swindon, the company specialises in the authentication of people and products.

It scooped the accolade for its innovative smart card system designed for the NHS.

The winning system, which is being deployed nationwide, is designed to streamline pre-employment health checks for doctors in training who arrive at new hospital placements.

It began in November 2001 in the London area, and there are now more than 100 systems installed in NHS Trusts in the capital. The software is now being extended to hospitals across the rest of England.

Comprising a unique smart card linked to a central database, the system allows key occupational health information, encrypted on the card, to be quickly checked when a doctor transfers to a new hospital.

The new system performs crucial checks in a fraction of the time of the previous paper-based system, holds the data securely, and frees up the doctors to begin work with the patients who need them.

TSSI's Pat Oldcorn, who has overseen the introduction of the revolutionary system into the NHS, said: "With the Government's plans to improve and modernise healthcare delivery, all eyes are now on the NHS.

"Technology and its correct implementation are crucial to fulfilling those plans.

"This project has demonstrated that, through close partnership with the Department of Health and the NHS, IT projects can be delivered on target, on time and to budget."

TSSI is a leader in the development and supply of automated authentication solutions for the protection of people, documents and products.

Products include the Verid family of fingerprint verification readers, Mandrake facial recognition, bespoke system solutions for the identification and management of people, and secure structured magnetics products for protecting cards, documents and packaging.

In 1999-00 TSSI products were sold in more than 20 countries.

TSSI (registered as THORN Secure Science Ltd) is part of Scipher, the largest technology development and licensing company of its type in Europe.

Scipher is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE:SIP) and is a constituent of the TechMark 100 index.