The Skyguard service combines a pocket sized personal safety device, capable of raising an alarm, with operators at a 24-hour response centre.
Having verified the incident, they then organise assistance from the emergency services or Skyguardโs mobile staff.
The service is centred on software at the Emergency Response Centre, developed by Skyguard, which can handle alerts from a range of Skyminder Personal Safety Devices, including GPS-enabled mobile phones. Once activated, it provides Skyguardโs professionally trained operators with personal details, photograph and precise location on large scale mapping as well as enabling communication with the worker in distress, before sending in help.
Applications include health visitors and medical and local authority staff, estate agents, security staff, taxi and van drivers, the firm says.
Chaired by Sir Geoffrey Dear, former West Midlands Police chief constable, Skyguard reports that its security and programming staff have been working on a number of lone worker tracking systems since late 2000, supported by a DTI Smart Grant and private funding.
This first monitoring and response service, launched in partnership with Legion Security plc, is accompanied by โSkyMinder Blue and Skyminder Plusโ – a palm sized Personal Safety Device in the final stages of production.
The employers of lone staff, the firm adds, gain protection against compensation and corporate negligence claims. Over 6,000 companies paid out damages for health and safety incidents in 2001 and, in 2004, one city council was forced to pay £200,000 to a lone worker who was assaulted while working unaccompanied, according to the firm. Interested parties – including the TUC, the NHS, the Home Office and Suzy Lamplugh Trust – have formed the Lone Workers Steering Group, chaired by Patrick Dealtry, a director of Skyguard.
