NHS East Lancashire has rolled out 1,100 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 Identicom deployment to date.
The community staff, including district nurses, health visitors, children’s services, the organisation’s wound care team, and occupational therapists, regularly attend to patients with complex needs caused by factors such as mental health problems, drug and alcohol misuse, and difficult social situations. They can thus face challenging situations, and the need to go out into the community at irregular hours. A small project team, headed by Catriona Logan, the Trust’s assistant director, business support & development, was responsible for rolling out the SoloProtect service to 66 different community services. “We began by rolling out Identicom to the district nurses and health visitors and then progressed through the various community service lone worker personnel identified as at risk,” Catriona Logan explained. Now when an employee feels they are entering a potentially hazardous situation, they press an amber alert button, which notifies SoloProtect’s monitoring centre. The centre in turn notes the wearer’s location and raises the alarm if the amber alert is not cancelled within a predetermined period. If the red alert is then pressed support staff can discreetly listen in to what is happening, and assess the level of support required – involving the police if necessary. Should a verbal confrontation occur, the Centre can also record the conversation for future action.
