Lone working and personal safety policy (domiciliary care)

1. What the regulation says

The primary law for lone working is the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, which are not held in the Verivius regulation manifest. The CQC duty this policy operationalises is Regulation 12 (safe care and treatment):

Care and treatment must be provided in a safe way for service users. (Reg 12(1) (the headline duty))

assessing the risks to the health and safety of service users of receiving the care or treatment, (Reg 12(2)(a) (risk assessment))

doing all that is reasonably practicable to mitigate any such risks, (Reg 12(2)(b) (risk mitigation))

ensuring that persons providing care or treatment to service users have the qualifications, competence, skills and experience to do so safely, (Reg 12(2)(c) (staff competence))

The full text of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 is at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37/section/2, the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 is at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3242/regulation/3, and Regulation 12 is at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/2936/regulation/12. Where this policy and the regulation diverge, the regulation wins.

2. Plain-English summary

Care and treatment must be provided in a safe way. The regulation lists the areas a provider must address, including risk assessment, risk mitigation, staff competence, safe premises, safe equipment, sufficient equipment and medicines, medicines safety, infection prevention and shared-care planning. Regulation 12 is central to CQC's safety expectations. For lone working, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 add the employer's duty to assess and control the risks to staff who work alone.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Roles and responsibilities

• Registered Manager: owns the lone-working system, approves local escalation times, ensures enough on-call cover and reviews serious or repeated risks.
• Scheduling or care coordinator: keeps the visit plan current, confirms staff have the risk information they need and monitors missed check-outs.
• On-call manager: responds to overdue visits and safety calls, follows the escalation route and records each decision and contact attempt.
• Line manager: completes and reviews risk assessments, checks staff competence and supports workers after incidents or near misses.
• Lone worker: reviews available risk information, carries the required equipment, checks in and out, leaves an unsafe situation and reports changes or concerns promptly.
• All staff: must not ignore a missed check-out, an unshared risk or a worker's decision to withdraw for safety.

6. Operational lone-working procedure

1. Review the planned work. Before the shift, the worker checks the visit schedule, known household and area risks, tasks requiring two people and the current on-call details.
2. Confirm readiness. The worker confirms that their phone and any alarm are working and charged. The coordinator resolves missing risk information or equipment before the visit.
3. Check in. The worker records the start of the visit through the approved system. The central record must show who is attending, where they are and when the visit should finish.
4. Use dynamic risk assessment. On approach and during the visit, the worker looks for changes such as an unknown person, aggression, an unsafe animal, intoxication, environmental danger or a task that cannot be completed by one person.
5. Withdraw and call for help when needed. The worker moves to safety, contacts the office or on-call manager and calls emergency services where there is immediate danger. They do not remain to protect equipment or complete a task.
6. Check out or trigger escalation. The worker records the end of the visit. If the local tolerance expires without a check-out, the coordinator follows the overdue-worker escalation route until the worker's safety is confirmed.
7. Record and review. The worker reports any threat, near miss, changed risk or failed control the same working day. The manager updates the risk assessment and visit plan before the next attendance where required.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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

12. 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.

13. 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 visit scheduling, missed and late visits policy). The worker does not put their own safety at risk to complete a visit.

14. 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.

15. Required lone-working record

The record includes:

• worker name, planned location and expected start and finish times
• actual check-in and check-out times
• the current visit risk rating, controls and date staff were informed
• any two-worker requirement, agreed code word or personal safety equipment
• the overdue tolerance and the on-call person responsible that shift
• every contact attempt, response, decision and escalation time when a check-out is missed
• any changed risk, no-access event, threat, incident or near miss
• support offered to the worker and the date the risk assessment and care plan were updated

The schedule, call-monitoring record and incident record must be consistent. Corrections keep an audit trail and do not overwrite the original time or response.

16. 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.

17. Audit cadence

The coordinator checks unresolved missed check-outs and safety calls at the end of every shift. Each month, the Registered Manager samples 10 lone-worker visits or all visits if fewer than 10 occurred, and confirms 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 overdue-worker and on-call process is tested at least quarterly, including an out-of-hours scenario. The Registered Manager reviews the results, records each improvement action with an owner and due date and checks a later sample before closing it.

18. Sources and further reading

This template is based on CQC's guidance for providers and managers, the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, and other topic-specific legislation and guidance listed below. It is a starting point for adaptation, not a substitute for legal, clinical, HR, safeguarding or specialist professional advice.

• 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/
• HSE violence and aggression at work guidance
• Local authority safeguarding adults procedures (where a risk involves abuse or neglect)
• CQC Regulation 12: Safe care and treatment
• CQC Regulation 17: Good governance
• CQC Regulation 18: Staffing
• 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

19. Related reading

• Guide: Domiciliary care compliance guide
• Article: CQC compliance for domiciliary care: the evidence inspectors expect
• Related policy: Visit scheduling, missed and late visits
• Related policy: Travel, driving and mobile working policy
• Checklist: Domiciliary care missed and late visits checklist

20. When to seek further advice

Seek specialist advice where the issue involves serious harm, safeguarding, deprivation of liberty, restraint, children, professional misconduct, controlled drugs, radiation, termination of pregnancy, infection outbreak, water safety, employment dismissal, DBS barring referral, or regulatory enforcement.

21. Document control

This sample policy template was issued by Verivius. It is a template, not a substitute for legal advice or the provider's own policy-development process. Where this template and live law or regulator guidance diverge, the live source wins.