Lone Working

During the risk assessment process, you should consider whether there are any parts of the activity which could leave workers having to work on their own. This could be because the activity involves visiting other locations, or it could be that your activity could extend beyond the normal working day. The lone working activity itself does not need to be covered by a separate risk assessment; it should be considered within your overall procedural risk assessment where applicable.

Working on your own (“lone working”) can lead to increased risks to your health and safety, particularly if things go wrong. When buildings are not fully occupied, there may not be someone in the vicinity who you can call on for help in an emergency. For this reason, you must have additional measures in place to protect you from this risk.

If lone working is required as part of your work activities, teams must provide, training, monitoring, and communication systems to manage their team’ safety. If the activity also involves long periods of time working remotely consideration to worker mental well-being must also be included in your risk assessment.

Lone working is only allowed for activities which have been defined by risk assessment to be 'Low Risk'.

All departments who have workers who need to carry out lone working activities need to put a buddy system in place. A model 'Standard Operating Procedure' (see the right-hand margin) has been prepared which sets out the minimum requirements for those who have been given permission to carry out work that involves lone working.

In addition, to the buddy system, the University has implemented SafeZone a free safety app, designed to help staff and students feel safe, informed, and supported on campus. The app has a ‘check in’ feature which you can use to let Community Safety know you're working alone or outside normal hours as well as being able to call for a first aider or another emergency. It is advised that all staff and students who carry out lone working activities download the app. Further information about Safezone follow the link on the right-hand side of this page. Please note – the Safezone app is to supplement existing departmental ‘buddy-system procedures’ it is not to replace them.