Two Way Radio use for Lone Worker Health & Safety (Part 1)

As Health and Safety in the workplace becomes more stringent, Wall to Wall Communications explain how employers can comply with HSE regulations relating to lone worker employees, by following specific procedures.

The following guide complements the advice given by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in its intention to assist duty holders with deciding how they can comply with their legal obligations regarding lone workers under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and Management of Health and Safety at Work regulations 1999.


It should be remembered that employers are responsible for the health, safety and welfare at work of all employees, those affected by work activities for example temporary staff and contractors and employees working off site.


Lone workers, by definition, cannot receive constant supervision. Employers must therefore ensure that procedures are put in place to monitor lone workers to help keep them safe and healthy.


When possible, instant communications can have many beneficial effects.

These may include:

• reassurance that advice and guidance is available from a supervisor or colleague
• ability to call for general assistance, e.g. when two people are required to do a short task
• regular remote monitoring of the lone worker (option to automate if using radios)
• fast communications in an emergency
  

Methods to monitor lone workers may include:

• regular contact between the lone worker and supervisor, e.g. using radios - bearing in mind the worker’s understanding of English (perhaps overcome by the use of Predefined Texts messages)
• checks to ensure a lone worker has returned to their base or home once their task is completed. For example login and logout features at permanent locations and location detection at temporary locations (which we will be talking about in upcoming blog posts).
• automatic warning devices which operate if specific signals are not received periodically from the lone worker, e.g. no response to the automated Lone Worker mode on radios
• devices designed to raise the alarm manually or automatically in an emergency, e.g. the Panic / Emergency Alarm and the Man Down modes on radios
  

For some emergency situations it may only be necessary for a lone worker to have a mobile phone, e.g. if working at a permanent location. Unfortunately, as experience has shown, there have been emergency situations where all available mobile phone systems have been jammed by excessive non-essential use (NB: in such cases, try sending a text. This is because texts only take a second to transmit and may be sent in the short breaks between other user’s mobile calls) or even switched off because of a potential terrorist threat. Where communications is considered critical during an emergency then a private radio system should be considered as a serious option.

In the following 2 articles, we will discuss two types of radio systems widely used to manage lone workers.