I would do a lone working risk assessment (or include lone working risk in a general risk assessment). It would be very brief and would say the risk is controlled by having alarms. I do not at all understand the idea of one for all individual employees, that makes no sense to me.

It is really up to the employer to decide whether someone is or is not a Lone Worker. It will also partially depend on what controls the employer can put it place to mitigate any identified risks. Clearly where there are no significant risks identified, then there is no need for the employer to do anything or to identify an employee as a Lone Worker.

There is no legislation i.e. Statutory Instrument covering Lone Working per se. It will be covered within the general risks covered by s2 of HSWA and other overlapping law. However there is HSE guidance on the topic.

I have just had a look at the HSE's guidance on care homes (scanned the index) and there does not appear to be anything obvious on lone working. Staff may work remotely from each other, but if they can sound an alarm or shout for help (and be heard) are they really lone working?

Where staff work with clients in their rooms, usually the client's care plan will determine how many staff are required, including if a particular gender of staff needs to give support.

One area where lone working may occur, though, is if a member of staff takes a client to the shops or on a visit. Or if a client visits for respite care and then returns to their own home and a member of staff undertakes a follow up visit to the client's own home.

So, as others have said, you may need an overarching lone working policy, but its application may need to be applied to those few cases where there is genuine lone working. Other than that, it might be wise (as one respondent has said), to just make a reference to your control measures in your general risk assessment.

Please remember that millions of people work 'alone' e.g. nurses visiting patients at home, postal workers, delivery drivers, lollipop ladies & men, etc.

These people are arguably at some risk and so the employer needs to consider that in its risk assessment. People working alone at the employer's workplace are not automatically at risk because they may be alone in a room. They should only be considered lone workers if they are at significant risk- e.g. a maintenance worker checking power lines, a water company worker going out to check valves at a remote water plant, a Dartmoor ranger working remotely in poor weather.

A simple principle of H&S that always helps me is to remember that we are required to assess and manage significant risks, not all risks.

Sorry Invictus I am not sure by you quoting me you misunderstood, but I was agreeing with you, I am sure your assessments cover the potential hazards faced by the "popping into a room" and so I would not be doing anything specific.

The distinction I was trying to make is that there could be very specific hazards to certain staff even when there are people close by that could make them lone workers. Hope that makes sense.

Generally the answer is No this is not classed as lone working, giving the information in the OP.

However, if this was a care home for mental health patients (or learning disabilities with challenging behaviour) and there may be a significant risk when entering the room, then a lone working RA may be required - which may identify that two staff members would be needed. Again this would be part of the care plan of the individual person.

Lone working (in our organisation) is defined as "work undertaken by people who have no fixed base of works and are likely to attend a number of sites per day", there are other definitions but this seems closest to your situation..

While you employees are likely to enter a number of rooms a day i presume these are all located within 1 building? therefore not required.

However for the sake of 1 additional risk assessment and so as to avoid any unwanted confrontation or sniping, why not just include lone working within the standard RAMS?

This is fascinating, but a bit like watching a car crash.

Are you sure they don't mean a risk assessment that covers everyone. Ie normally in a risk assessment you state who it covers, employees or group of employees, customers, visitors, contractors etc. If you had 40 different tasks and 1,000 workers you then have 40,000 risk assessments !!!!, come review time (annually) that's a lot of work.

Surely you just have a risk assessment for when someone is lone working ( possibly one covering different scenarios).

I'm also struggling with the concept that someone taking someone from a care home shopping is actually a lone worker. I always considered a lone worker was someone with a chain saw in the middle of the forest on their own, that could not easily summon help in an accident. Since when did it morph into going shopping ?

I have been sat in my office all alone most of the day, doing paperwork - you know there is no risk assessment for me lone working ( and never will be).

OMG, I just thought I had better stop everyone going into the toilet on their own !

Chris

Feel your pain

Did you ask which regulation exactly requires one per person ?

Not in your line of work, but find it hard to believe there is such a regulation.

Chris

Point taken and perhaps shopping was a bad example. The point I was trying to make (obviously not very well) was that there may be times when a client is taken out of the home (on a 1:1 basis) and the worker might be, to a large extent, on their own with the client e.g. picnic to a quiet park. If the client had a "funny turn" or there was some other incident that the worker needed to cope with, the worker might be deemed at that point to be "lone working." They cannot rely on the client and there might be no one else around to help.

This, again, cross references to the client care plan and decisions about which, and how many staff, may need to accompany a client. That process, though, is not always an exact science.

When you say the inspector, are we talking HSE?