Canterbury City Council is the latest local authority to join the ever growing number of organisations using Lookout Call, C3’s automated lone worker safety system, for its lone workers. Lookout Call is currently being used by mobile wardens, housing officers, night call-out officers and by employees who work with the homeless in the Council’s housing sector.

The system has been so successful with these working groups there are plans to introduce the service to lone workers in other departments, including community centres and sheltered housing.

Why Lookout Call? Canterbury Council went out to tender for a technology-based lone worker safety system in 2005 and several organisations were invited to visit the Council to make formal presentations of their lone worker solutions. Lookout Call was finally chosen because of its flexibility and because it is very easy to use.

“In the beginning staff were very concerned that Lookout Call would be like Big Brother. But their concerns were short lived because the system only stores details of the last visit made, and this information is only used if an alarm is raised,” says Adrian Bray, Supported Housing Manager for the Council.

He continues: “Lookout Call also boosts staff confidence; they know there is a back up procedure in place should things go wrong. Using Lookout call encourages staff to take their own personal safety training more seriously.”

Team leaders are able to ensure that their lone workers are using the system by looking at the usage reports stored on the Lookout Call website. These are accessible via a secure interface that is password protected. This is very important for the Council as it helps them ensure that Lookout Call is being used to its full potential. In the event of a serious incident, team leaders can obtain a full audit trail, which demonstrates Canterbury Council’s speed of response to their lone worker’s request for help.

The deployment of the service has been so successful that Canterbury Council is considering integrating Lookout Call into its overall Health and Safety policy.