Macmillan uses Guardian24’s Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) to fully manage the lone worker process

A well-known charity, Macmillan Cancer Support, has invested in a lone worker solution for their staff and volunteers via a personal safety mobile phone app. Macmillan is a charity that aims to reach and improve the lives of everyone affected by cancer across the UK and they wouldn’t be able to achieve what they do without the support of thousands of volunteers.

The volunteers’ role can often include periods of lone working including spending significant time in the homes of people affected by cancer. Macmillan needed a central and consistent way of ensuring the safety of their lone working volunteers no matter when or where they were visiting people affected by cancer. Chris Badman from Macmillan explains, “Our aim is to grow our volunteer base from around 70 volunteers supporting people in their own homes to 2000 by 2016. Buddy schemes aren’t as reliable as we’d like and we needed something more robust in place to cover our Duty of Care as an organisation and to allow our paid staff to do their main job without worrying about the well-being of volunteers in the community.”

Macmillan opted to protect their volunteers who work alone with Guardian24’s lone worker solution via the volunteers’ personal mobile phones. The solution was easy to use for volunteers of all ages and different technical abilities and it was cost effective. The Guardian24 app allows the lone working member of staff or volunteer to log into the system prior to each home/location visit giving details of the address, who they are going to meet and the expected duration.

If their activity overruns Guardian24 will automatically call the worker to verify their safety. If the worker cannot be reached Guardian24’s Alarm Receiving Centre will be notified informing them of the overrun activity. At this stage an agreed protocol will be followed to verify the user’s safety and location.

Should the lone worker feel that their safety has been compromised they also have access to a dedicated panic button on their phones which will raise a panic alert, even if they have not logged a lone worker activity.

Macmillan uses Guardian24’s Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) as the most cost effective and efficient option to fully manage the lone worker process. With the volume of lone working volunteers increasing, paid staff are free from constantly checking where volunteers are, secure in the knowledge that if there is a problem they will be notified. This saves time, energy and money.

Guardian24 provides reassurance for Macmillan that its staff and volunteers have a high level of personal safety when working in the community. The system enhances the confidence of the volunteers as they feel safe knowing that Macmillan value their personal safety and it is taken care off. Macmillan started off with a small Guardian24 project and has continued to roll it out across the organisation with training.