Lone staff strike back

Verbal abuse, threats of violence and vicious dogs – if you're a housing officer, care worker or in one of the many other roles that involves visiting tenants on your own, the possibility of danger is all in a day's work. In a Health & Safety Executive study last year, incidents reported by solitary workers at one council included being threatened with a hammer and a large-screen TV being thrown at someone.

Lone workers – people who work by themselves without close or direct supervision, or with no regular interaction with colleagues – play a major role in the provision of social housing. For example, Solihull council estimates that up to 80% of its housing staff spend time working by themselves: some are required on call 24 hours a day or live on site; others sit alone in an unsupervised office; about two-thirds are mobile workers.

But there are steps that can be taken to protect solitary workers from harm and if the right precautions are taken, the chances of being hurt are low.

Solihull is not exceptional and all social housing providers accept that ensuring the welfare of their crucial, frontline employees is a priority. Ray Galletley, deputy area housing manager at Solihull, says: "If a worker has a bad experience, the consequences can be serious. They might go off sick or worry their colleagues. This stresses the individuals involved and makes it all the harder to run essential services."

It is up to individual social housing providers to decide how to look after lone workers and there is no specific legislation that deals with this group. But two laws, the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act and the 1999 Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, detail the broad duties of care that employers have to their staff.

Know your enemy
Most importantly, employers are responsible for identifying hazards at work through risk assessments and putting into place suitable controls. Beatrice Aciro, health and safety adviser at housing manager Pinnacle PSG, says ongoing risk assessments of the tasks of lone workers are vital at a policy and local level.

"A risk assessment will take into account the location of a housing estate and its history, the likelihood of a worker encountering alcohol or drug abusers or potentially dangerous animals, and the kind of activity the worker is carrying out," she says. "These appraisals must be made about each job the worker does. Although a safety adviser can identify general high-risk areas, individuals need to be taught to make their own judgments."

Most social housing providers recognise this need to offer some training to lone workers, and many, such as Circle 33 and West Lothian Council, use a combination of in-house trainers and external agencies such as the Suzy Lamplugh Trust (see "How to make home visits safer", page 30). The lessons should cover how to recognise conflict and deal with aggression but also tips on self-protection, such as parking close by to a home being visited or checking customers' identities.

Importantly, refresher training must be offered to maintain awareness. Collette Richardson, human resources manager at Amicus Group, says: "It's our responsibility to point these things out and then make sure that staff always work with their own safety foremost in their minds."

Stay in touch
Effective monitoring of lone workers is key to minimising the chance of something going wrong. Unaccompanied staff have to be able to indicate if they need back-up and must confident that it will arrive as soon as it's required. Technology now offers social housing providers a wide choice in how they do this.

Circle 33, for example, tracks its remote and mobile working staff by getting them to check in using mobile phones, and is satisfied with this system's performance. Field staff are issued with phones and check in before 10am to say where they will be working; they call back again at lunchtime to say they are well and confirm their afternoon schedule. The process is repeated at the end of the day – all visits have to be completed by 9pm. If a staff member does not check in, their line manager will find out why.

Fiona Fisher, a customer services manager at Circle 33 who spends up to four days a week working alone, says the approach works well and she feels safe. "Somebody always knows where I am and I have no problem with remembering to call in," she says. "And if I'm worried about going to see a tenant by myself I can arrange for a colleague to come with me. If I'm anxious about doing an eviction or if I'm due to visit someone who has a record of antisocial behaviour, that'll also be flagged up on our system when I check the person's details on our computer system."

Bromford Housing Group also uses a manual checking-in system and has a series of code words that field-based staff can use to alert managers if they need immediate back-up.

As in the case of Circle 33, all lone workers have a mobile phone. If they feel the need, they call in and drop a code into conversation – their manager then immediately alerts the police. Marie Bagley, a project administrator and lone worker at Bromford, says that although she hasn't needed to use the code, she feels assured that help is at hand should she want it. In the office, she also has access to panic buttons: "I know what risks are involved with this work but don't feel nervous because I know these systems are in place."

Touchstone Housing Group uses a similar method: it has one code to ask for support and another to ask for police assistance.

Automated monitoring
But not everyone is convinced that manual methods are effective enough. Tracy Simpson, manager of lone worker monitoring at Bracknell Forest council, says there is less room for error in an automated system like the one it has been using for the past year. "The manual system we had worried me because it relied so much on staff informing each other about the movements of field workers as some went off duty and others began work. In a busy office, things can get forgotten and out of normal office hours people aren't always alert," she says.

Bracknell's solitary workers access the system using a specially adapted mobile phone. The technology recognises the caller's voice and asks them to state their whereabouts and the activity they are doing, such as travelling, and how long the activity will take to complete. Then it counts down until the time specified for that activity is completed. Near completion, text messages are sent to remind the worker to provide an update on what they are doing. If this isn't received, an alert is raised.

Simpson says the cost is around £2.50 per worker a month, plus the price of the phone and that the system is "hugely" popular. Other social housing providers, including Granta Housing Society and Amicus, are trying out similar technology.

But most social housing providers can't afford phones for all solitary staff, so assessment is important here, too, to find out who is most at risk and really needs specialised equipment.

Some staff who may not seem obviously vulnerable could still be in danger. As Pinnacle's Aciro says: "I've visited estates where tenants often throw heavy objects out of their windows. Because, say, grounds maintenance workers don't see themselves as being at risk, they don't tell us that there has been a near miss. But we need this kind of information to help identify which risks are where. That's why constant feedback between workers and managers is needed."

The talking cure
Julie Smith, training officer at the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, a body that offers advice to lone workers and their bosses, says creating focus groups can help staff tell their managers what other support they may need but also provide an opportunity to offload the stresses and tensions of their work.

"Managers don't always know what pressures these workers face and it's incredibly important that they have the opportunity to share their experiences with each other," she says.

Getting out into the field and dealing with situations independently may be the stock-in-trade of the lone worker, but strong back-up support is indispensable if they are to stay safe and do their jobs to the best of their abilities – because, as Smith says: "A problem faced alone can be a problem magnified."