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Personal safety devices being given to hospital trust lone workers
04/04/2023
The devices are one tool to support keeping staff safe
Lone workers in areas such as the community midwifery and Home Hospice Care teams are to be given personal safety devices as part of a project to protect staff working for the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The initiative comes as part of the Trust’s People Plan for 2022-25, with the devices being one tool to support keeping staff safe.
The personal safety devices come with SOS alarms and GPS and WiFi positioning technology. They can alert staff at a call centre who can speak to the person concerned, assess the situation, and escalate as necessary, including contacting the Police if needed.
The Trust has over 500 lone workers across a variety of teams, including community nurses, occupational therapists, and the Estates team.
A Trust spokesperson said: “The health and safety of our staff are of paramount importance to us – whether that be on-site in our hospitals, or in the community.
“Lone workers can be vulnerable and at increased risk of physical or verbal abuse, simply because they don’t have the immediate support of colleagues or security staff. However, we hope that these devices will bridge that gap and provide an extra layer of security for them when they are out in the community, or indeed in isolated areas of our hospitals.
“We have a zero tolerance to abusive and aggressive behaviour towards our staff, as demonstrated by our No Excuses campaign.
“We take the safety of our staff extremely seriously, whether that be on the wards, in patients’ homes, or in individual offices. By providing lone workers with personal safety devices, we hope that our staff will feel safer, more secure, and assured that should something unfortunately go wrong that they are fully supported and protected.”
Published: by Banbury FM Newsteam