Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust adopt MySOS personal safety devices to protect their lone working staff.
Recent figures have shown that incidents during home visits occur more frequently than one may think. Alarming statistics taken from a survey conducted by the Royal College of Nursing found that more than 1 in 10 nurses have been subjected to physical assault within the past 2 years whilst visiting a patient’s home.
Kingston NHS Foundation Trust, provide a range of healthcare services to approximately 320,000 residents across Kingston, Richmond, Wandsworth and Elmbridge. Kingston Hospital being the Trust’s core site, provide over 500 patient beds and consist of approximately 2,300 staff. The Trust employ a number of drug dispensing staff who work in the hospital behind the counter, often alone during late hours.
The Trust also conduct personal home visits to individuals, some of which are from vulnerable backgrounds. If either of these public-facing roles, often undertaken by lone workers were to find themselves in a difficult situation, seeking help could be problematic.
Results taken from Peoplesafe’s recent customer satisfaction survey have confirmed a significant rise in lone worker incidents within the past year. It was identified that out of 1,735 respondents 5.1% had to activate their safety alarms in a ‘live incident”.
Kingston NHS Trust felt no choice but to eliminate this risk and turned to Peoplesafe’s service to help. Peoplesafe, an approved supplier on the NHS Supply Chain is proven in use and already work with over 100 NHS Trusts in providing first-class protection.
The MySOS SOS alarm device is accredited to the BS 8484:2022 standards. With this, Peoplesafe have direct access to police control rooms and are able to bypass the 999 service. This guarantees faster response times in an emergency and eliminates the added time of the worker scrambling for a mobile and having to explain the situation to a 999 operator.
With these devices by their sides, the staff at Kingston NHS Trust can feel protected whilst knowing they can get emergency help discreetly without alarming an aggressor. The device has the flexibility to be worn or carried in multiple ways; a pendant, on a belt clip or even as an identity badge.
If an incident was to occur, a simple press of the SOS button will activate an alarm at Peoplesafe’s very own 24 hour operated Alarm Receiving Centre. Here, trained Peoplesafe Alarm Controllers will be able to listen in via the device’s two-way audio functionality to ascertain the situation. As the device is unique to each user, the Alarm Controller will use GPS tracking to determine their exact location, guiding help to the user, fast!
When asked if they would recommend Peoplesafe’s service Andy stated: “yes definitely, Peoplesafe’s customer support network and help desk set them apart from other lone worker protection providers”.
