2009-10-08

By Editor, CIR

BSI has published a code of practice to deal with the risks relating to the increasing number of people in the UK that work alone, either away from their organisation's base, at home or at abnormal hours.

Working alone can create additional health and safety risks and lone worker devices (LWD), electronic devices able to transmit location, identity and voice to a monitoring centre and request assistance, offer additional personal security. BS 8484, a code of practice for the provision of lone worker device services has been developed to create a benchmark against which LWD services can be measured. Compliance with this code of practice by service providers will enable both effective use of resources and maintenance of a good level of support for lone workers. BS 8484 also aims to reduce the number of false alarms received by the response services.

Patrick Dealtry, chairman of the BSI committee responsible for developing BS 8484, said: "Employers have an obligation to ensure the health and safety of their workforce whether they are in an office or working at home, working nine to five or through the night. Lone worker services, combining LWDs and ARCs, enable lone workers to transmit their location and be confident someone is working on their behalf to request assistance when they are in trouble. BS 8484 makes recommendations for this increasingly used service, which will establish best practice in helping employers to look after vulnerable staff."

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