It is estimated that there are 6 million people in the UK who can be described as ‘lone workers’. This includes a wide range of support staff who visit clients in their homes to provide vital health or social care services and field engineers who do not come into contact with the public but are potentially at risk of having an accident. It also includes other ‘remote’ workers such as lone security guards and home workers.
The latest British Crime Survey reports that 150 lone workers are assaulted every day (under 1% of all lone workers annually).
The vast majority of lone workers fall into the category of ‘low risk’ and traditionally an internal ‘Buddy’ system has been used to monitor their safety. It is widely accepted that Buddy systems are usually inadequate because they rely upon lone workers remembering to ‘check in’ with colleagues at the right times – and often this doesn’t happen punctually.
Employers seeking to upgrade their safety monitoring arrangements using technology are now faced with a daunting variety of solutions and an equally wide range of costs – anything from £1 per user/per month to £30 per user/per month. Solutions range from purpose-built devices with GPS tracking and ‘mandown’ detectors, to body worn video cameras. All of these facilities are aimed primarily at ‘high risk’ workers.
We have received a large number of enquiries recently from organisations which have ‘low risk’ lone workers and don’t see the need to invest in expensive products. A housing association contacted us and commented “We were recommended to use Lookout Call having decided against more complicated solutions. We simply needed to upgrade our existing Buddy System without having to introduce new devices or phones. Lookout Call is ideal for any organisation which wants to seamlessly automate its lone worker safety arrangements without any upheaval”.
If your organisation currently uses a Buddy system and you feel it could benefit from being automated, the good news is you can immediately make a vast improvement without buying expensive technology. Lookout Call never forgets to check on the safety of the lone worker at the right time and it raises alerts when appropriate. No device is required other than a phone.