Protection in the lone worker environment

Responsible employers realise they have a duty of care to protect their lone workers from injury or worse and a cost effective method must be found to help the employer to at least be alerted if there is a problem on site. There is no future in ringing the lone worker every 10 minutes to ask if he is alright, far better a system which will alert the employer if something has gone wrong. Indeed it is clear that many companies now have a culture so strongly biased to the care of the employer, and the safety responsibilities of the employee following training, that accidents rarely occur. However, the duty of care is still there.

 

Morecambe-based In Touch Ltd has for many years provided its customers in quarries and sand operations with a lone worker alarm system which assists in protecting workers who may be away from the main group. In the situation where In Touch Ltd provide the radio system to site, this is provided free of charge, and the system is reported to work well. The lone worker radio can of course be used as a normal radio when the lone worker requirement is not needed. This traditional system requires the employee to carry with him a handheld radio programmed with a delay agreed with his senior manager on the same principle as those in larger quarries. This amounts to a period of time from five minutes to an hour, so that after the elapsed period, the radio emits a tone to the user, which if not cancelled, will send a signal to the rest of the radios that there may be a problem.

 

In Touch has now developed a new and very effective method of helping to protect the lone worker. It is particularly suitable for quarries and concrete plants which are one man operations.

 

With the new system, the handheld radio sends the alarm signal to a base radio in the batch cabin, or the weighbridge, which is linked to a stand alone auto dialler linked to a BT landline, which will then send a pre-recorded message of your choice to up to four telephone numbers of the Manager’s choice which should all be within fairly easy striking distance of the site. It is clear that there must be strong commitment from the worker, as false alarms would be frustrating and time consuming.

 

The cost has been deliberately kept to a minimum, but always with effectiveness in mind. All that is required is a licence to operate the radios, two radios, and the autodialler, which can all be supplied by In Touch. The system is in the final testing stage, and will be installed into customer’s sites shortly.

 

In Touch believe that this will greatly assist organisations to protect their lone workers, whilst keeping costs to a minimum and maintaining a high standard of health and safety.