Q&A Alarm Response Best Practice [Webinar]
During our recent webinar providing tips and insight into alarm response and escalation plans we received a host of questions. Some were answered during the session, but we didn’t get the chance to answer all of them. We’ve collected all the questions and provided answers.
Webinar Recap
Alarm Response
Can an escalation go direct to emergency services?
If there is a risk presented to us by what we can hear through the device audio then we will always go directly to emergency services.
Do peoplesafe have an escalation procedure that I could download?
Yes, we have created a guide for escalation contacts and plans
Once all the escalation contacts have been called/attempted, do they get tried a second time?
Yes, we will continue to try contacting the user and escalation contacts until we have managed to speak to someone that is able to confirm the user’s welfare and is happy for the alarm to be closed.
If an emergency protocol is started by the ARC, at what point do you contact the escalation to keep the employer updated?
Our priority is always the user’s safety, first and foremost. We will always ask the user if they would like us to contact their escalations. As standard, we do not inform escalation contacts of incidents unless it is stated to do so on the escalation plan. However, incident notifications can be turned on for Managers or Administrators in Nexus.
What happens if you have called all the contacts and no one can get in contact with the person? What are the next steps?
It is quite rare that we would be in a situation where we’re struggling to close an alarm down having followed our standard operating procedure of continuously contacting the user and cycling through emergency contacts. Our Controllers get quite creative to try and find additional numbers if we need to.
We would only be able to escalate to the emergency services when there is genuine cause for concern, otherwise they wouldn’t dispatch a response.
We’ve had a couple of alarms that were activated out of hours, the alarm activations were left open overnight. What should we do to ensure that this doesn’t happen again?
There’s a few potential options that you could look to implement. If you have dedicated working hours on your escalation response instructions, you could potentially build in a buffer of around an hour at the end of the day to catch any timers that have overrun and not been cancelled.
You also have the option of including an out-of-hours second line of support that we could make calls to. The final option is to include the user’s personal emergency contacts or Next of Kins so that if anything happens out of hours, there is a non-work contact we can try to speak to. We do advise that if you implement this option then the Next of Kin needs to understand what may happen and their role in potentially helping us to close an alarm down.
What happens if signal or network is low?
If the signal is low, it is very rare that there is not enough signal to activate an alarm at all. What can happen is that the alarm comes through to the ARC but the audio does not, in this case we would treat it as a non-audio alarm and complete the escalations process as usual.[
When alarms are closed out by someone other than the user (i.e. escalation contact) do the ARC ask the escalation contact how the welfare has been verified?
Usually this information is offered by the escalation contact but if they call and ask us to shut the alarm we do not question how this has been verified.
If business is Mon-Fri is 24/7 escalation cover necessary?
Often, especially for users of the timed activity or check in timer services, alarms can be raised at the end of a working day, so having after hours support for alarms where users have not confirmed they are home safe is necessary.
The Peoplesafe service is available 24/7 and many organisations encourage their staff to use the service outside of working hours to increase their feelings of safety in their personal lives. If an alarm is raised outside of working hours, we recommend having at least one person to contact, even if that is a Next of Kin.
If somebody raised an alarm, could you know where they are by GPS?
Yes, the device or app will transmit a GPS location that will appear on the Alarm Controller’s Lighthouse software when an alarm is raised.
Nexus
Where do you update your Escalation contacts?
When you’re logged into Nexus, there’s an Alarm Response Information section of the menu. What you’ll be able to see in there is a list of your current escalation contacts so you can go in there and edit them, add new ones and see the escalation plans you’ve already got set up.
Can administrators set duress words?
Yes, it is recommended that any duress words are ones that can be easily dropped into conversation and can be applied across the entire account.
Can workers add their own risks? i.e. health issues?
Yes, workers can edit their own profiles and provide additional information they are willing to share to help the ARC Controller during an alarm response.
Can you update the profile including risks associated with projects as new contracts come on board?
Yes, you can update a user profile at any time with additional or new information that can help our Controllers respond to an alarm.
Do you have onboarding forms that can be passed to staff to garner as much information as needed to add them into Nexus?[
Yes, you can download an import template from Nexus by selecting the import button on the profile page. The columns on the import template have pre-set drop downs and open text fields already set out.
In addition, you can ask users to log into Nexus themselves to put information on their profile.
We’ve had a few of our team ask about GDPR concerns with all their information being on the system and worries on who can access this.
Nexus operates a RBAC (Role Based Access Control) permissions system that allows account administrators to control the level of access required by specific users. This is done by granting users the necessary roles on their user profiles.
Locations can be restricted to ‘No one within your company’ and only to be shared with Peoplesafe and accessed during an alarm. Personal information can also be restricted so that Managers can only access basic identify and contact information via our online portal, whilst still sharing important information to Peoplesafe ARC. Here are some Helpcentre articles to explain in more detail:
How To Restrict Location Access in Your Account
How To Restrict Personal Information in Your Account
The data processed on our Nexus platform is protected in accordance to industry standards. Being compliant to ISO 27001 including Cyber Essentials plus, all access and security controls including policies are in place as a default standard requirement.
Can you offer any advice on setting up shared user devices?
Create a profile that’s called either ‘Shared Profile’ or ‘Team Profile’ and within there you can use the distinguishing features field to list out all the individual users that may be using that one device and any relevant additional information. One thing to make sure each user does is to: leave a voice memo or start a timer every time they pick up that device which will tell the Controller which user they’re dealing with. Here are some Helpcentre articles to explain in more detail:
Does the User have visibility of the device’s battery status?
Yes, Users can see the battery status of their device on the Nexus platform. All devices beep when they reach 30% battery and our latest 4G ID Badge has an LED screen displaying battery status.
How frequently is the User’s location updated on the map?
GPS will be updated when users complete interactions with their device or app like completing a voice memo, raising an alarm or when they log a manual position.
If tracking is added to your service, standard tracking is every 15 minutes; however, this interval can be reduced to every 5 minutes.
Will the SOS device fully track a User’s journey and show this on the map?
As standard, the Peoplesafe device will not be tracking the user’s journey on the map. The map is primarily used to confirm the user’s location when they raise an SOS alarm and this position feeds into which constabulary will be contacted if emergency services are required.
If tracking is enabled on the device and location permissions in Nexus are enabled, yes, you can view journeys on the mapping feature within Nexus. We do not recommend this approach unless it is safety-led for high-risk workers, as using the location data for other business activities can deter people from utilising their Peoplesafe service.
