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Lone workers are some of the most at-risk employees of any business. Due to the inherent risk of working alone, there are certain safety measures that need to be carried out in order to ensure that you’re keeping your lone worker safe. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the best ways to keep lone workers safe.
Recommended Reading: Lone Worker Solutions and the NHS
What is a lone worker?
A lone worker is any employee whose job requires them to work separately from others. Within the NHS these may be practice doctors or carers. In other fields, the title lone worker covers electricians, gas company employees, postmen and any job that requires you to work alone. While these jobs may not seem risky on first glance, working alone means that if something does go wrong you have no one to call for help.
Lone workers within the NHS
The NHS contains a number of roles that are typically filled by lone workers. These include mental health nurses, home/domiciliary visits, outreach workers and therapists. However, a job role does not need to be carried out alone all the time for you to qualify as a lone worker. Those escorting a patient through a hospital, locking up buildings at close/open, or carrying out clinical examinations are also at risk when working alone.
What to expect from your employer
Ultimately, the most important thing for your employer to provide is a strong lone worker policy. This means that proper harm reduction practices are put in place to ensure that risks are minimised. Your employer should inform you of all policies in place to protect you from harm when working. Additionally, risk assessments should be regularly carried out to reduce potential harm. Risk assessments need to take into account what is known about the client, what is known about the employee and what is known about their interaction.
This is a more detailed example of a risk assessment for jobs within the NHS
Raising the alarm
There are other measures that can be put in place to minimise the dangers to lone workers. These include technological lone worker solutions that can be used to alert your employer of any danger that you’re in. Typically these work on different frequencies to mobile phones, meaning that they will keep you safe even in places without any mobile phone signal.
Contact us for more information
At SafeTrac, we’re dedicated to ensuring the safety of the most vulnerable members of our NHS. That’s why we’re always on the forefront of lone worker technologies. For more information about any of our lone worker solutions, including the TWIG series and our own lone worker tracking devices, please do not hesitate to get in touch today!
