Protecting Lone Working NHS Staff

Safeguarding your keyworkers 24/7, wherever they are
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Why choose Peoplesafe?

Peoplesafe partners with over 100 NHS trusts and have been protecting healthcare workers for over 20 years. This in-depth understanding of the safety risks in this industry means we can provide the best-in-class service to meet the varied needs of NHS staff.

The NHS People Plan, launched in July 2020, made a promise for leaders to prevent and control violence so that “staff should never be fearful or apprehensive about coming to work”.

Lone working NHS staff and those working alone in other parts of healthcare are around 9% more likely to sustain an injury from a physical assault compared to non-lone workers. Peoplesafe is the largest employee protection technology provider in the world with a dedicated service to protecting people and nothing else. The simple introduction of NHS personal alarms to protect your colleagues, is just a click away.

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Leading safety technology

  • 6-day battery life
  • Trusted to protect over 36,000 NHS staff.
  • Highest levels of accreditation (including BS 8484:2022, EN 50518:2019 and BS 9518: 2021).
  • A suite of solutions to mitigate multiple different risks.
  • Guaranteed police response.
  • DTAC compliant.
  • Continuous training offered via a wide range of options which can be embedded into your LMS.
  • Best-in-class online portal that allows staff to self-manage.

NHS trusts who already protect their staff with Peoplesafe

Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber NHS Trust logo
Central and North West London NHS Trust logo
Derbyshire Healthcase NHS Foundation Trust logo

All types of risk covered

Low Risks

  • Working in remote areas in clinical settings away from colleagues
  • Staff travelling between clinical settings
  • Lone working admin staff
  • Taking public transport or walking home after long shifts

Mid-Level Risks

  • Abuse, violence and aggression from patients, their relatives, or the public
  • Transporting patients
  • Accompanying service users to appointments
  • Facilities management
  • Slips, trips, falls and health incidents

High Risks

  • Home visits
  • Escorting service users on section 17 leave
  • Risk of attack or robbery
  • Terror threats

Read our Guide

Lone Working in the NHS

There are an increasing number of NHS lone workers, including those who work alone to complete high-risk tasks for parts or all of their day. They may be required to see patients in their home; patrol clinical environments; respond to calls out-of-hours; transport patients for appointments and facilitate and manage waiting rooms.

This exposes them to a higher level of risk when compared to the risk presented to those working in groups. Simply implementing NHS personal alarms into your lone working policy for NHS staff, could greatly reduce this.

Read our guide outlining responsibilities that employers and employees in the NHS have in the context of protecting lone workers.

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User Stories

NHS Nurse Stabbed

An NHS mental health nurse was working in a GP surgery reception when a member of the public entered the surgery and stabbed him. The user needed urgent assistance, so activated his device. The alarm was instantly received by the Peoplesafe ARC and the user explained that he had been stabbed and that the perpetrator was still on scene. The Controller confirmed the user’s location and immediately contacted an ambulance, they then used the URN to contact the local police force. The controller stayed on the line with the user until help arrived, providing reassurance, and updating him on the location of the ambulance. In the meantime, another ARC Controller followed the user’s escalation instructions and alerted his line manager of the situation. Within 4 minutes both the police and ambulance were on scene to provide help and handle the incident.

NHS Carer Trapped

An NHS carer was visiting the property of a patient when she was trapped inside and not allowed to leave. The patient was bleeding due to unknown causes, so the nurse was working on the patient trying to find the source of the problem. The patient’s wife then became verbally abusive to the carer, shouting at and intimidating her. The carer felt unsafe, so she discreetly activated an alarm to the ARC.  

The Alarm Controller listened silently for 10 seconds to assess the situation and then accessed the voice memo’s that the user had left on her device. This memo detailed the specific flat she was visiting, which was also backed up by the GPS coordinates of the device. The NHS Carer then informed the Alarm Controller that the patient’s wife was blocking the exit, so the controller contacted the police. 

While the police were on their way, the Alarm Controller followed the escalation procedure on the user’s profile, alerting her manager of the situation. During the length of the alarm, the Alarm Controller kept the NHS Carer informed on the whereabouts of the police and provided constant reassurance until the police arrived to take control of the situation and allow them to leave.  

“Our Home Treatment team visits mental health patients in their homes at point of crisis. We therefore work with a range of presentations, including often chaotic and erratic behaviour, heightened emotions which obviously has added risk involved.”
Dr Thomas Verghese, South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust

Body worn cameras in the NHS

Hospitals and NHS services are increasingly turning to body worn camera systems to address the growing problem of aggression towards staff.

All 10 ambulance trusts in the UK have implemented body worn cameras – three years ahead of schedule. Other trusts across the country are adopting this technology to address staff safety challenges including United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH).

Body worn video technology allows healthcare staff to record incidents where they feel at risk. Any subsequent recordings are then able to be given in evidence should an actual assault occur. Bodycams have already proven effective in NHS trials in de-escalating aggressive situations.

Combine these with lone worker devices for NHS staff like an NHS personal alarm, and staff can feel significantly more comfortable handling complex or fast-changing environments.

Explore Body Worn Cameras

Get in touch to learn about our loan worker devices for NHS staff

If you’re an NHS trust or healthcare organisation and want to explore lone worker devices for NHS staff or private healthcare employees, please get in touch for a demo.

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