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Having a discussion with a client of mine and they are having a review of their working practices. They have a bungalow where clients come to stay for short or long periods of time. Some require 1-1 support others are 2-1 support. If they are in the bungalow and the manager is in the office then I don't class that as lone working, but if they walk to the local shop or go for a walk in the park, the worker is now saying they are lone working. I don't think they are. Although they aren't with any other co-workers but they are in public and therefore in sight of several others.
Is my thought process right? I get that the definition of lone working is "working without close supervision or in isolation". There is no other worker nearby but they aren't in isolation due to being in a public location with members of the public around
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Originally Posted by: Mark-W  if they walk to the local shop or go for a walk in the park, the worker is now saying they are lone working
Is that with or without the client?
If the client needs the support of two carers then excursions away from the residence would make them lone workers as the manager would not be immediately available in the event of incident e.g. the client wandering off.
You cannot presume public assistance in the UK.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Originally Posted by: Mark-W if they walk to the local shop or go for a walk in the park, the worker is now saying they are lone working
Is that with or without the client?
If the client needs the support of two carers then excursions away from the residence would make them lone workers as the manager would not be immediately available in the event of incident e.g. the client wandering off.
You cannot presume public assistance in the UK.
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2 users thanked Roundtuit for this useful post.
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Mark - I would need to check but I don't think the term "lone work" (or any variant of that) is used anywhere in health and safety legislation. Lots of comment in guidance. So, you need to take this back to first principles and think through the risks to the worker and, where relevant, the person they are caring for. Then make decisions as to what you think is "reasonably practicable" and what is NOT. Whilst accepting Roundtuit's point, if this person is in the shops or the local park, there is much greater chance of someone summoning assistance than if a lone worker is e.g. doing survey work in the middle of nowhere.
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1 user thanked peter gotch for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Originally Posted by: Roundtuit Originally Posted by: Mark-W if they walk to the local shop or go for a walk in the park, the worker is now saying they are lone working
Is that with or without the client?
If the client needs the support of two carers then excursions away from the residence would make them lone workers as the manager would not be immediately available in the event of incident e.g. the client wandering off.
You cannot presume public assistance in the UK.
Many thanks for your response. Where a client is requiring a set number of carers the manager isn't included. So if they are 2-1 then they will have 2 dedicated carers with them at all times. In this case, the cleint is 1-1. So they will be escorted to local shops, park with the carer. I get the point about not presuming public assistence.
It's hard, because we want to give our clients the life experiences they desrve but the local council will only pay for the number of carers as dictated by their initial RA and condition. We can't afford to add extra carers for trips to the shops just to prevent lone working. So in the end the cleitn loses out.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Mark - what is the issue with people lone working in this situation? As others have said go back to your risk assessments. What is it you are concerned about? The worker becoming Ill, the service user becoming agressive? I can think of a whole range of situations.Lone working is not baned and the type of controls you have in place will depend on what the situations are. I use a whole range of solutions for the people who lone work including, lone working devices, buddy systems, mobile phones etc. There is no one size fits all and even if you decide to go down a "device" solution you still have to have some input into the system.
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