1. Purpose
Care workers in a domiciliary service spend almost all of their working day alone, in other people's homes and travelling between them. This policy sets out how the Service keeps those workers safe: how it assesses the risk of each visit, how it knows where every worker is and that each one has finished safely, what a worker does when a situation feels unsafe, and how the Service learns from incidents.
The Service must verify this policy against current health and safety law and Health and Safety Executive (HSE) guidance before adoption.
2. Sources to verify before adoption
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 2 (the employer's duty to protect employees): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37/section/2
- Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 3 (risk assessment): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3242/regulation/3
- HSE, Protecting lone workers: how to manage the risks of working alone (INDG73): https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg73.htm
- HSE lone working topic pages: https://www.hse.gov.uk/lone-working/
- Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, Regulation 12 (safe care and treatment): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/2936/regulation/12
- Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, Regulation 18 (staffing): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/2936/regulation/18
3. Scope
This policy applies to:
- every member of staff who visits a person at home alone, including care workers, senior carers, assessors, trainers and managers carrying out spot checks
- every part of a visit: travelling to the home, entering it, the time spent inside, and leaving
- staff who work alone in the office out of hours
Lone working is not only working at night. A worker on a routine daytime call is still alone in someone else's home, and this policy applies in full.
4. Assessing the risk before a worker attends
The Service assesses the risk of each new package of care before the first visit, and reviews it when anything changes. The assessment looks at:
- the person being supported, including any history of aggression, distress or behaviour that challenges
- other people who live in or visit the home, including family members and anyone whose behaviour has been a concern
- animals in the home
- the home itself, including access, lighting, trip hazards, smoking and any equipment a worker will use
- the area and the time of the visits, including parking, walking routes and visits made after dark
- whether the care can be delivered safely by one worker, or whether two workers are needed
Each risk the assessment finds is recorded with the control that reduces it. The assessment is shared with every worker who will attend, and is reviewed after any incident at the home.
5. Knowing where every worker is: check-in and check-out
The Service operates a system that records when each worker starts and finishes every visit, so that a worker who does not finish a visit when expected is noticed quickly.
- Each worker's planned visits, with expected start and finish times, are held centrally.
- The worker records the start and the end of each visit. The Service confirms how this is done (for example through the call-monitoring system, an app, or a call to the office).
- If a worker does not record the end of a visit within a set time, the Service follows the overdue-visit procedure: the worker is contacted, and if there is no reply, the procedure escalates to a named manager and, where there is reason to believe the worker is at risk, to the emergency services.
- A worker working alone in the office out of hours uses the same check-in arrangement.
The Service sets and records the overdue-visit time limit and the escalation steps, and tests the arrangement so that staff know it works.
6. The worker's right to know about a risk
A worker has the right to know about a known risk at a home before they attend. The Service does not send a worker into a situation it knows to be unsafe without telling them and putting controls in place first. Where a risk is too high for one worker to manage, the Service arranges two workers, changes the visit, or does not send a worker until the risk is controlled.
7. Staying safe during a visit
The Service expects every worker to:
- park and approach the home with their own exit in mind, and stay aware of the way out while inside
- carry a charged phone and any personal safety alarm the Service provides, and know how to use it
- step back from any situation that turns aggressive or frightening, and leave if their safety is at risk
- never carry out a task that needs two people on their own
A worker who leaves a home early because they did not feel safe has done the right thing. The Service supports that decision and never treats it as a failure to deliver care.
8. Travelling between visits
Travel is part of lone working. The Service:
- plans rounds so that travel time is realistic and workers are not rushed
- expects workers who drive to hold valid insurance that covers business use, and to drive within the law and within their fitness to drive
- considers walking routes, lighting and personal safety where workers travel on foot or by public transport, especially after dark
- tells workers what to do if they break down or cannot reach a visit
9. Out of hours and the on-call route
The Service has a named on-call contact at all times when visits are taking place. Every worker knows how to reach the on-call contact, and the on-call contact knows how to reach a manager and the emergency services. The on-call route is tested and the contact details are kept current.
10. When a visit cannot go ahead safely
If a worker cannot enter a home, gets no reply, or judges that a visit cannot go ahead safely, they contact the office or the on-call contact straight away. The Service then decides the safe next step, taking account of the risk to the person who was expecting care (see the missed and late visits policy). The worker does not put their own safety at risk to complete a visit.
11. Reporting, recording and learning
- A worker reports any incident, near miss, threat or feeling of being unsafe the same working day.
- The Service records each report, supports the worker, and reviews what happened.
- Where an incident meets the threshold, it is logged as an incident and runs through to a recorded outcome with any actions completed.
- The Service reviews lone-working incidents together at the governance meeting to find patterns and improve the controls.
- A worker affected by a frightening or violent incident is offered support afterwards.
12. Training
Every worker who visits people at home completes, at induction and on a refresher cadence the Service sets:
- lone working and personal safety
- recognising and de-escalating aggression
- using the check-in and personal safety arrangements
- what to do when a visit cannot go ahead safely
The Service records who has completed each item and when the next refresher is due.
13. Audit cadence
The Service checks, on a stated cadence, that:
- every active package has a current lone-working risk assessment
- the check-in and overdue-visit arrangement is working and has been tested
- the on-call route is current and answered
- lone-working incidents are reported, recorded and learned from
- training is up to date
The Registered Manager reviews the results and records the improvement actions that follow.