Designing better mental healthcare facilities

Call for consistent lone worker protection

As NHS workers become more mobile, and provide more services out in the community, NHS Protect has completed a survey of lone worker protection across the NHS in England, finding ‘wide variance’ in provision by employers.

Sue Frith, NHS Protect MD, said: “The level of response was excellent, especially from acute trusts, mental health trusts, and Clinical Commissioning Groups.”

Over 2000 stakeholders were contacted by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), and over 700 commissioned services invited by NHS Protect to complete the survey. Some of the key findings were:

  • Badge-holder type devices (over 60% of the NHS market) remain more popular than key fob devices.
  • The mental healthcare sector – where NHS staff suffer the highest assault rate – at 223 per 1,000 – does not have a higher rate of lone worker device usage to reflect this.
  • Use of mobile phones for lone work is steadily rising. Occupational therapists and community health staff are the highest users of management systems and alarm type solutions.
  • The sector with the lowest number of assaults (acute) has the highest usage of devices (73.83%).
  • The ambulance sector has the lowest rate of lone worker device usage (41.67%). • In their lone worker protection planning for the next two years, most NHS organisations are looking at lone worker devices (41%), training (40%), management systems (28%), and CCTV (31%).
  • The lowest level of intention to improve lone worker protection is among organisations with the lowest level of current protection, (29.4% for no devices, versus 52.9% for some).

To view the full report, visit: http://tinyurl.com/p6l6ph5

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