I am a community nurse and we are having problems with ensursing safety with lone workers. The hazards are that we enter a patient’s (clients/service users) home and they may be threatening and aggressive during the appointment and colleagues need to alert they need help.
Currently all staff are added into a work WhatsApp group (with their personal phone numbers) and notify their whereabouts by typing ‘going in’ and ‘out safe’ which team leaders monitor against our appointment diaries.
Recently we’ve had a few uh oh moments when in some areas there is no wifi/4G signal and these messages don’t go through sometimes for hours. We’ve been asked to brainstorm alternative ways (with little to no cost involved = NHS) to monitor staff safety and we’re drawing a blank.
Is there other strategies that you’ve used and found helpful?
Edit- yes this is NHS England
13 comments
You should have an alarm system,something like solo protect.
Whats app in and out groups are not sufficient if you’ve been attacked, how does that staff member call for help? Personal phones are also concerning, the employer hasn’t provided work equipment so how can they be sure it’s in working order etc.
Im a local government officer who really does not like working without a lone working device like this.
Do you work for a private company or the NHS? Either way, they should have risk assessments for each service user, you should have a Lone Working policy to refer to and a de-escalation/behaviour management policy. Lastly, you shouldn’t be sent to a SU’s home alone if they have a documented risk of being aggressive (especially if they have a risk of being physically aggressive).
Construction / engineering rules are; phone call or message check up from either side every 30 mins, if no response then assume something has happened and services need to be called/ get immediate eyes on depending on circumstance
Ours is similar, although we use work phones so we can use live location. We also have a code phase that’s supposed to mean you’re in trouble but we have so many rolling agency workers I don’t trust it would actually work. Neither of those are much use without signal though.
Ultimately we just hope that our risk assessments are accurate and nothing awful happens which is pretty crap. I’m fairly sure that most of our SUs assume we must have some sort of proper security since it’s ridiculous that we don’t.
>Currently all staff are added into a work WhatsApp group (with their personal phone numbers) and notify their whereabouts by typing ‘going in’ and ‘out safe’ which team leaders monitor against our appointment diaries.
That’s one of the stupiest things I’ve heard – is anything else posted there because it could be subject to access requests by individuals.
Some mobile phones (usually Android) have lone worker apps, others I believe have a panic button too. However, mobile network is required.
Bear in mind a mobile phone will do sweet fuck all to protect someone unless it’s a Motorola from the early 90’s and they’re well built. Sorry for the bluntness, but this isn’t a solution when dealing with someone dangerous.
You shouldn’t be asking them to use their personal phones for work purposes. What if they choose not to pay for data on their phone? Are they obliged to have a smartphone with WhatsApp and paid data as part of their work contract? In which case you need to provide them with such.
If no mobile signal look at radios, panic alarms, setting up a buddy system etc. You say you’ve been asked to do this with no cost, but rather than looking for something cheap, I’d recommend instead making the case for funding – really show how dangerous it could be. I lone work and use a radio for contact but was recently sexually assaulted by a customer and of course the radio did no good in that case, and so my work are pursuing what other safety measures we can take, because although I’m fine I could very well have not been. Think of the worst case scenarios and really highlight how easily they could happen, and what a shit show it will be when they do (mass resignation, media scrutiny, unions coming after you when they see how poorly everyone has been treated, etc). Make it so that they have no choice but to fund this.
We use a system called archangel by a company called safeshores, at the end of the day. Lack of funding isn’t an excuse if someone is harmed
We use a device called Skyguard which can go on our lanyard and has an SOS button. It has a SIM card and GPS on it. We can get in touch with an operator when we press the SOS button on it. The device has a mic and speaker on it. They can assist further and dispatch emergency services is required.
Edit: I am a community physiotherapist with the NHS.
(aside from tech solutions)
Maybe you can also offer volunteering opportunities, maybe aimed at students who might be working in a similar capacity in future – where they can accompany nurses on their visits- not sure what the rules would be for this though(due to sensitive information being shared). Something to maybe consider though. Then the visits at the very least wouldn’t be alone.
Edit : I’m sure if something like that was advertised to students studying social work, nursing, etc via their university, it would get a lot of applicants because it would be valuable experience.
We have an automated system. You call it to log in and give a check in interval (eg. 1 hour.) Once that time passes, if you haven’t called to log out, the system calls you. If you pick up you can either press a number for emergency or can extend the time. If you don’t pick up, then security get alerted and someone comes looking for you.
How many lone workers are on your team?
My job is lone working outside and uses an app called “PeopleSafe”, which records activity when enabled and can detect falls and things. If unusual is detected then the user gets a phone call from a call centre to check.
The average age of person in the company is 58 and I’m 26 so I don’t pay much attention to it, but it’s probably useful overall.