Reliance High-Tech is enhancing its Reliance Protect lone worker service by introducing a new welfare check capability for lone workers entering high-risk situations, adding a further layer of safety and reassurance for both staff and employers.
Reliance High-Tech developed the innovative welfare check solution working closely in partnership with a leading UK retailer, looking at strengthening the lone worker safety for their team of field based engineers. The engineers can be working in high risk areas where there is no mobile phone coverage. The key challenge was to enable alarms to be initiated and responded to by the 24/7 Reliance Monitoring Centre when the user is in an area with no mobile phone coverage.
Check in and check out
This new feature developed for the Identicom range of devices takes the advantage of three additional buttons on the front face of the device. The new service enables lone workers to ‘check in’ with the Reliance Monitoring Centre prior to entering high risk situations and/or areas of unreliable mobile phone coverage, and ‘check out’ once they are safely away from that environment. ‘Checked in’ users are flagged in the Reliance Monitoring Centre as at a higher risk status. If the user doesn’t ‘check out’ to cancel their heightened risk status within a set timeframe, an alert is automatically activated, triggering a pre-agreed alert escalation process that is initiated and managed through to resolution by the highly skilled and specialist Reliance Monitoring Centre staff.
Implementation area
"This welfare check feature clearly demonstrates our approach and commitment to working in partnership with clients to identify and develop new service features to enhance staff safety" |
This new feature is especially beneficial for staff who face risks associated with the environment they are working in, away from colleagues and the general public, where they could be in remote areas and/or isolated areas of sites where mobile phone coverage is unreliable. It complements the already well-proven man-down functionality to help mitigate the risks associated with slips, trips, falls, and incapacity due to illness and accidents.
This additional service will be ideally suited to a wide range of lone workers such as engineers, maintenance and utilities staff who need to carry out tasks in isolated locations like basements, roofs or at a power sub-station. It can also be utilised for wider mobile, field based staff applications for checking in and out at the start and end of working shifts, with the reassurance of an immediate and robust escalation process if staff do not check out.
Following successful trials, the welfare check solution is now available as part of the Reliance Protect service including existing customers that can easily upgrade to incorporate this new feature.
Identicom ID badge protection
Reliance Protect combines the GSM and GPS enabled Identicom ID badge protection devices with the full assurance of a swift and robust monitoring and response service managed by the Reliance Monitoring Centre. Compliant with the most stringent safety standards, it gives employees and employers the peace of mind that emergency support is available when its needed most.
The service supports the needs |
Commenting, Chris Allcard, Head of Lone Worker Services at Reliance High-Tech, said: “We developed the welfare check that combines a more effective alert and response mechanism with an extra layer of safety for lone workers in situations with unreliable network coverage. The service supports the needs of an increasingly mobile, 24/7 workforce with employees who may be on the road or in the field for much of their working day. This new feature clearly demonstrates our approach and commitment to working in partnership with clients to identify and develop new service features to enhance staff safety. This particular feature was scoped, developed, and successfully tested in a matter of weeks.”
NHS Lone Worker Framework
As the UK’s leading provider of lone worker protection services, Reliance Protect safeguards tens of thousands of employees nationwide across a broad range of sectors and applications. Reliance Protect is the single supplier for the delivery of national NHS Lone Worker Framework and has held this contract since 2009.
Reliance Protect is the UK’s most regulated and compliant lone worker protection solution available. BS8484 accreditation ensures the company, its lone worker devices, monitoring and alarm response capability enable alarms to be escalated directly to regional police services, bypassing the traditional 999 route, to generate the highest police response levels as appropriate. BS5979 Category II is critical for any organisation looking to safeguard workers as it is the highest industry standard for alarm monitoring centres. In addition, ISO27001 accreditation ensures that all customer and staff data is securely managed in complete confidence.