There have been a number of excellent articles published recently in Professional Security Magazine which have dealt with the topic of lone worker safety, writes Andy Farrall. He’s founder of Management & Safety Training Ltd, an accredited training provider registered with the awarding body HABC.
However (and this is not intended as a criticism in any way) these articles dealt in the main with the use of electronic devices to monitor the lone worker’s position and situation. The aim of this article is to go back to the fundamentals and look at an issue which was touched upon by Sue Frith in her interview in the March 2010 issue, when she said that each employee must consider the “… dynamic risk assessment of an incident”.<br><br>The key phrase here is risk assessment, the heart of any effective health & safety management system. It is often argued that failure to provide a risk assessment (itself an offence) is justification for an additional charge of failing to provide a safe system of work. (The logic is simple: if you haven’t assessed the risks how do you know you’re doing it safely?) And, as an aside, each offence now carries a penalty of a maximum fine of £20,000 at the Magistrates’ Court, or an unlimited fine at the Crown Court .<br>“Five steps to risk assessment” – a free guide published by the HSE – makes it very clear that risk management starts with removing the risk completely. That is the ideal, but if that isn’t possible (and we’re talking about the real world) then you manage the risk by, for example, changing working procedures.<br><br>Issuing personal protective equipment (PPE) is in reality one of the last things you do, and that is only done when all the other solutions have been tried but a significant risk still remains.<br>What may not be understood by security managers is that lone worker alarms and monitors are legally considered as PPE, because the Regulations define PPE as “… all equipment … which is intended to be worn or held by a person at work and which protects him against one or more risks to his health and safety”.<br>There is a temptation to go for the obvious choice when managing lone workers and just give them an electronic alarm – but this could be a serious mistake.<br><br>If a company uses an electronic alarm as its first line of defence rather than as a last resort then not only do they leave themselves open to criticism for following poor operational standards, they also open the door to a potential prosecution for failing to conduct an adequate risk assessment and failing to employ a safe system of work. (And remember that each charge can result in a substantial fine if the prosecution succeeds).<br><br>The situation is analogous to the thorny problem of protecting staff from violence. You cannot just give the security officer an anti-stab vest and tell him to get on with it; you need to conduct a full risk assessment of that particular assignment and manage the risks properly. So, to summarise, if you employ lone workers you have a responsibility, both legal and moral, to ensure that they are properly trained, including dynamic risk assessment techniques; that they are properly equipped; and that the tasks they perform have been properly (that is, fully) risk assessed.<br><br>Electronic systems have a vital role to play in protecting the safety of lone workers, but they are one element in the risk management process and not a panacea for all problems. Email Andrew Farrall at [email protected]
