Europe's Premier Personal Safety Service for Lone Workers 0845 0360 999
Personal safety devices can make all the difference in a potentially life-threatening situation, but under what circumstances should you raise the alarm?
It’s essential to use your own personal judgement in deciding when it’s appropriate to raise an alert as all situations are different. As a general guide, if there is a clear emergency, you’ve had an accident or your safety is at risk, then you should reach for your device immediately.
Scenarios where you should activate your personal safety device or app include:
If there is an emergency and you need urgent assistance
If there’s a danger to life or someone’s safety is at risk
If you’ve had a serious accident and require help
If you feel threatened
If you suffer a severe health problem
Of course, these are just guidelines. Remember that in all cases you should trust your instincts and press the SOS button if you feel it is necessary. If you raise an alert and it turns out to be a false alarm – don’t worry. Simply
When faced with threatening situations, protecting yourself is a basic human instinct – but not everyone knows what is considered appropriate action when defending themselves.
Many of us encounter situations where circumstances dictate that we need to physically protect ourselves or others. This may be in our personal lives, but it can also occur in the workplace, for example if an angry customer becomes violent.
If this happens you may have to think on your feet and act quickly, so it’s useful to know the boundaries of what you can and can’t do, to help give you the confidence to make the right decision in the moment.
What does the law say?
Legally there’s no specific definition of reasonable force as this is judged on a case by case basis. However if you can prove that your actions were necessary given what you thought at the time, then this is acceptable and you have acted within the law.
In the UK, anyone can use reasonable force to protect themselves or others if a crime is taking place. This
In the UK it’s estimated that over 6 million of us are lone workers, but what does this mean and what exactly counts as lone working?
According to the Health and Safety Executive, by definition a lone worker is someone who works by themselves without close or direct supervision.
Lone Workers are all around us, they are the nurses working in the community, the shopkeepers in our local store, the engineer that fixes our faulty boiler and the delivery driver that brings us a takeaway.
For somebody to be a lone worker it doesn’t mean they have to be completely alone in isolation all of the time. If an employee cannot be seen or heard by a colleague then they are technically lone working, even if it’s just for a brief period of time.
In fact, most of us have probably found ourselves lone working from time to time without even realising it.
Lone Workers Can Be Vulnerable
The danger with working alone is that if something were to go wrong (such as an accident, injury, sudden
Just like us, you have been planning for how Brexit (the UK’s exit from the European Union) could impact your company and of course your current supplier relationships.
Internally, we have taken all the steps necessary to ensure continuity of service and uninterrupted lone worker protection, regardless of how Brexit is finalised.
For more information, please refer to our Brexit Statement
As assaults on shop workers have reportedly risen by more than half in under 2 years, retailers are calling for greater protection for their staff, with some in the sector suggesting assaults on retail employees should be made an aggravated offence.
The Commercial Victimisation Survey conducted by the Home Office showed that in 2017-18 there were a staggering 8.1 million incidents of assault and verbal abuse towards retail workers. This figure is up significantly from the previous year in which 5.2 million incidents were recorded.
Trade union, USDAW (Union of Shop, Distributed and Allied Workers) are campaigning for the creation of a specific offence for assaults on those working within the retail sector.
A USDAW insider said: “Everyone knows if you assault a police officer you get a stiffer sentence. We want something similar for shop workers.”
Ministers had previously dismissed the idea but are said to be reconsidering given the recent rises. Crime Minister, Victoria Atkins has ordered a probe to establish the reasons behind the increase and identify those areas and types of retailers most
