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Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust

Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust (NLAG) is an acute secondary care provider located across North and North-East of Lincolnshire and East Riding of Yorkshire. It operates across three hospital sites in Grimsby, Scunthorpe, and Goole, as well as various community settings.

The Trust’s wide geographical spread means that community teams often must travel significant distances to see patients and administer care. This can take them to community surgeries as well as more remote rural areas where they deal with a mix of patients, including people with drug addictions, detoxing patients, new mums, and the elderly,

Essential Technology

The Trust currently provides around 537 Peoplesafe MySOS devices to nurses and other travelling community staff. A proportion of these are issued to specific members of staff who use them regularly, while others are ‘pooled’ devices, shared between teams, according to who is timetabled to be out in the field at any one time.

According to Phil Young, the Trust’s Local Security Management Specialist, Peoplesafe technology has quickly become an essential piece of kit. He says:

“For our people out in the community, carrying a Peoplesafe device is the same as a police officer having a radio. It’s essential. The peace of mind you have from knowing there is emergency contact available at all times can’t be underestimated, especially when you are lone working in more remote areas. Every Peoplesafe device we provide has its own roaming sim, which will always connect to the strongest available network, significantly increasing the level of reassurance and safety we’re able to offer staff.”

Implementation and Training

When the Trust decided to introduce personal safety technology, they first canvassed staff on what sort of device they would be happy to carry and what it needed to offer operationally. The MySOS was chosen for its size and versatility first and foremost – you can clip it onto a belt if you don’t want to wear it lanyard-style. But it has been the accompanying service provision that has really impressed.

“The device itself is only one part of the Peoplesafe safety story”, says Phil Young. “While we’ve been very impressed with the functionality of the MySOS – and the Nexus platform is also excellent – what has impressed us most is the day to day support we receive from the team.”

“The response time from Peoplesafe is very fast and their people always go the extra mile to make sure our staff receive any extra training or support they might need. Only recently, our Account Manager came to do a free workshop for 30-40 of our nursing staff. They have also helped retrain people who are returning to work, often in one-to-one Teams sessions.”

“Regular usage was a challenge to begin with but with internal training and the regular support provided by Peoplesafe, usage has quickly doubled – and continues to rise”.

Policy Integration

Protecting people is at the forefront of NLAG Trust safety policy, so MySOS use is being made mandatory for all lone working staff. “Peoplesafe is helping us safeguard our employees effectively with both its technology and, crucially, via the associated support and training it provides. It’s this support and training that is driving better usage, which is helping us to fulfil our risk assessment obligations”, says Phil Young.

“We want to know they are safe 24/7, so if someone wants to keep their device switched out of work or on their way to and from work, we’ll always let them do that. We also support staff who are identified as being at risk from personal circumstances by letting them keep their devices switched on out of work, which is coordinated via myself and their line Manager. Personal safety isn’t just a 9-5 issue.”

Phil Young, Local Security Management Specialist

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