Health and Safety Guidelines for Lone Working

Overview – Protecting Your Lone Workers Who are your lone workers and what do they do? How can we make them safer? Assessing and controlling the risks Legislation surrounding lone working

Who are loneworkers? Lone workers are those who work by themselves without close or direct supervision. work outside normal hours • work away from their base • work separately from others • are the only person on the premises • work outside in the community • visit people in their homes

Relevant Legislation The Safety Health and Welfare at Work Act, 2005 requires all employers to provide among other things, safe places and safe systems of work. Aimed at a preventive approach to reducing accidents and ill health at work Contains provisions for securing and improving safety, health and welfare The General Safety and Health Provisions and the General Applications regulations 2007, require employers to take the necessary measures to ensure the Safety, Health and Protection of Employees.

HSA Reportable Accidents 2015 Main accident triggers in Health and Social work Sector: 1. Manual Handling 30.8% 2. Aggression and Violence 20.1% 3 Falls 17.2%

Safety Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 Section 13 – Duties of Employees To take care of their own safety health and welfare and to co-operate with the employer (i.e. the HSE) in discharging its statutory duties. Employee’s duties include: To take reasonable care of their own safety and the safety of others when working alone To co-operate with their employer to enable him/her comply with safety and health legislation To report any defect in the place of work, the systems of work without unreasonable delay To report any work being carried on, or likely to be carried on, in a manner which may endanger the safety, health or welfare at work of the employee or that of any other person, Having regard to his or her training and the instructions given by his or her employer, make correct use of any article or substance provided for use by the employee at work or for the protection of his or her safety

Safety Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 Employers must ensure that, in complying with their general legal duties to carry out risk assessments they take full account of the risks of work carried out alone and make sure these risks are eliminated, reduced or minimised – Safety Statement Source: HSE Working Alone in Safety HSE Policy on Management of Aggression and Violence July 2014 Confirm the safety of a lone worker at reasonable intervals.

Lone Workers Increased vulnerability - Increased risk of physical/ verbal abuse and harassment from patients, relatives or members of the public Employers have a duty to protect them from risk of physical and verbal abuse Risk assessments Provision of lone worker devices Employees should take practical steps to improve their personal safety attend training adhere to lone workers policy and procedures report near misses and incidents

Personal Safety How do you manage to cope with hostile situations? What personal safety measures do you use to deal with these situations?

Risk Assessment What questions do you ask or know

TIPS Is Phone Set to Speed Dial Is there Phone Coverage Who Knows you are there Do you use Diary Sheets or a buddy system Do you reverse into Drive Is Car parked in well lit area

Personal safety