NHS East Lancashire deploys SoloProtect to help safeguard the health and safety of its community workers

(24/09/2009)

NHS East Lancashire's Community Staff, which include district nurses, health visitors, children’s services, wound care team and occupational therapists amongst others, often have to attend to patients across the community who at times have complex needs caused by such factors as mental health problems, drug and alcohol misuse and difficult social situations. As its Community Staff are frequently faced with challenging situations, and the need to go out into the community at irregular hours, the PCT wanted to ensure duty of care to its lone workers by putting a safety system in place.

NHS East Lancashire has completed the roll out of 1100 Identicom devices as part of Connexion2’s SoloProtect lone worker solution, to help safeguard the health and safety of its community workers. The largest single NHS deployment of Identicom, the device was chosen by the Trust’s Local Security Management Specialist (LSMS) as the most robust solution for protecting lone workers.

A small project team, headed by Catriona Logan, Assistant Director Business Support & Development, had responsibility for rolling out the SoloProtect service to NHS East Lancashire’s 66 different community services.

“Chris Allcard from SoloProtect was part of our project team and provided us with indispensable help and support with the rollout”, said Catriona Logan. “We began by rolling out the Identicom to the District Nurses and Health Visitors and then progressed through the various community service lone worker personnel who had been identified as at risk”.

NHS East Lancashire’s decision to purchase the SoloProtect package was based on Identicom’s ease of use and ability of employees to participate fully in managing their own safety. Connexion2’s SoloProtect combines the five-core elements that are essential for a credible and complete lone worker solution. These include the ACPO Secured By Design approved Identicom, SIM and inclusive airtime, user training, 24 hour manned monitoring and unique TotalCare™ pre & post sale customer support.

Now when an employee feels they are entering a potentially hazardous situation, they press an amber alert button, which notifies SoloProtect’s monitoring centre. In this way, the monitoring centre is able to note the wearer’s location and raise the alarm if the amber alert is not cancelled within a predetermined period. If the red alert is then pressed the centres’ support staff can discreetly listen in to what is happening and make an assessment as to the level of support required – involving the police if necessary. In the event of a verbal confrontation, the Centre can also record the conversation for future action.

“We have had really positive feedback from staff who have told us that they have peace of mind knowing that they can discreetly summon help if threatened”, continued Catriona Logan. “Identicom has been well trialled by the NHS CFSMS and we believe it is the best device for this type of worker. This together with the excellent day to day customer support, end user training and 24-hour monitoring from SoloProtect has ensured a winning formula for the Trust”.

Related topics:  Lone worker protection   Monitoring systems   Safety and protection systems 

Print version | Email to a friend | Related articles

Data breaches: Trends, costs and best practices gives you all the latest information on securing personal and corporate data, key recommendations for immediate action to improve data security, and how to respond to data breaches.

Other Security news and resources