Safety first for frontline staff

Dorset Fire and Rescue Service (DFRS) is deploying lone worker technology to help ensure the safety and security of its field-based staff. The devices will not only help protect protect staff working alone who may potentially be at risk, but also meet vital health and safety requirements.

“We have approximately 14,500 fire hydrants spread throughout the county and it is the responsibility of our lone worker fire hydrant technicians to carry out inspections, test and repair defective hydrants which can often be positioned in remote or hazardous locations,” said Ian Crabb, water and foam officer at DFRS.

“With tilt-and-motion sensors to detect a potential man-down scenario, as well as a periodic welfare check-in feature and SOS alarm, the Trio device [from messaging solutions specialist PageOne] provides us with a sophisticated solution to address health and safety concerns and provide peace of mind to our staff. The Trio also operates as a two-way pager so can be used for our normal messaging and alerting.”

Fully integrated with Connect, PageOne’s cloud-based messaging service, means DFRS can manage and monitor their lone workers from a secure web-dashboard.

“SOS alerts are auto-forwarded to a pre-defined list of contacts through Connect, so the right people are notified and kept in the loop,” says Officer Crabb. “When an alert message is received, there is a link to Google Maps which shows the last known location, along with a date and time stamp meaning we can quickly and easily find and assist staff in distress.”

Its use has recently been extended to the community safety team.