Public Sector Spending Cuts Cause Lone Worker Alarm

July 8, 2010 - PRLog -- Lone worker safety is a huge issue for Public sector bodies.  Apart from not wanting to see a colleague harmed in any way it is also a legal requirement with potentially criminal consequences for individuals and bodies that neglect their duty to protect their workers, include those working alone.

To put the scale of the problem into context, a midlands based Hospital Trust has recently identified lone worker safety as the number one risk in the organisation.  Not, malpractice in the operating theatre, not misdiagnosis of a life threatening condition, or even superbugs closing wards.  Their biggest organisational risk is keeping lone workers safe. And they are not alone.

With approximately 2.3m lone workers in the UK (according to the government figures) keeping lone workers safe is a massive task.  But how real is the threat to lone workers?  An NHS study found that 81% of their lone workers surveyed were concerned about violence and aggression.  They also found that 56% of lone workers in local government, NHS and housing associations had experienced aggression at least once in their careers.

And public sector bodies are going to face some really difficult decisions about the best ways to keep their lone workers safe in the months ahead as the pressures of spending cuts bites.  Lone worker safety costs money – and in many cases a lot of money.  Often organisations have tried buddy systems with one colleague looking out for an expected return of another, but for many this approach fails as people are busy and forget.  Others use a diary system, but again, it relies on colleagues remembering to check which is by no means a certainty in any busy office.  So the alternative is to provide technology – and it’s expensive.

Technical solutions include a lone worker phoning a call centre with pin codes before and after an appointment, lone worker alarms with a GPS tracking device and others.  Often though, solutions can start at around £15 per worker per month, plus the cost in some cases of buying and maintaining specialist devices.  Then of course there are the other hidden costs of staff time for lengthy training sessions, providing support for lost or damaged equipment and a whole host of distractions.

So it seems that difficult choices are ahead for many public bodies as they are caught in a battle between a legal obligation and a spending axe, with lone workers in the crossfire.  Thankfully though, options are becoming available to help.

An innovative option is TXTBuddy, a lone worker alarm system that uses coded text messages to alert colleagues when a lone worker is in trouble.  It’s designed with ease of use and price in mind, so a lone worker can typically be trained in around 5 minutes.  No special equipment is required and the running costs can be £2 per worker per month or less.  In difficult financial times, this is exactly the kind of solution that will enable the public sector to deliver cost savings without affecting services or staff welfare.

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