St. David’s Hospice Care
The Customer
St. David’s Hospice Care is the UK’s largest provider of hospice home care. They provide vital services to over 3,200 patients each year. The organisation currently utilises Peoplesafe’s personal safety service to protect its lone-working staff: 20 clinical nurses, 10 family support members, and 80 ‘Hospice at Home’ nurses providing care to terminally ill patients.
The Challenge
St. David’s Hospice Care is committed to providing bespoke round-the-clock care. Nurses often find themselves working through the night in isolated areas, therefore putting themselves at risk of assault, accident, or injury. According to statistics published by The Telegraph, nearly 170,000 violent incidents take place amongst England’s hospitals each year – that’s roughly one attack every three minutes. Given such an alarmingly high statistic, it is unsurprising that St. David’s Hospice Care sought a reliable lone worker system to protect its clinical staff during outreach visits.
With this in mind, and given the importance of every organisation meeting its Duty of Care towards its employees, St. David’s Hospice Care turned to Peoplesafe.
The Solution
St. David’s Hospice Care chose to utilise Peoplesafe via their own mobile phones. The service allows nurses and carers to ‘check-in and out’ when visiting service users.
They can leave details of the address they are attending, who they are meeting and how long they expect to be. Should their activity overrun, Peoplesafe will automatically call the user to verify their safety. If they cannot be reached, Alarm Controllers at Peoplesafe’s Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) will raise the alarm. They’ll follow the user’s pre-determined escalation procedures until the user’s safety can be confirmed.
An alarm can be raised at any time, too. Using a speed dial function, they can call for help to alert either the ARC or their nominated respondent at St David’s Hospice Care. This solution is extremely cost-effective and can be used on any mobile phone. It allows nurses and carers to utilise the system on their existing handsets without the expense of a dedicated personal safety device.
The Benefits
Having had the system in place for some time now, St David’s Hospice Care workers can go about their daily duties with confidence.
