Lone-worker monitoring software for UK teams

What the law expects

There is no UK law that bans working alone. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) says employers must manage the health and safety risks before people work alone, and that this includes self-employed people working for you. Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 you must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks, and the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 2 requires you to protect your employees' health, safety and welfare so far as is reasonably practicable.

HSE's guidance, Protecting lone workers (INDG73), and its page on training, supervision and monitoring, say employers should keep in touch with lone workers, for example through pre-agreed intervals of contact, and should have a reliable way to confirm that a worker has returned at the end of a task. The guidance does not set a check-in frequency and does not name a product type. What counts as suitable depends on your risk assessment: the higher the risk, the more supervision is needed.

The four common approaches

1. Smartphone apps with a monitoring service

A worker installs an app. It offers an alarm button and sometimes timed sessions. Alarms can be passed to a staffed alarm receiving centre (ARC) whose operators decide what to do. This suits workers with company phones and a risk profile where a fast, human-handled response matters. The trade-offs are installation and phone management, battery and signal dependence, and a per-user service cost.

2. Dedicated devices and an ARC

A small alarm worn as a badge or carried as a fob raises an alert at the press of a button, and some detect a fall or lack of movement. The signal goes to an ARC. Where the service meets BS 8484 (the code of practice for lone worker services), police forces can give the ARC a unique reference number so that urgent alarms are passed to the police quickly. For work with a real chance of violence or serious injury, this is the approach most employers weigh first. It costs more and involves hardware to issue, charge and replace. See Lone-worker check-in software or a monitored alarm service? for the detail.

3. Check-in software

The system schedules welfare checks ("are you OK?") and follows up when one is missed. It does not rely on the worker pressing anything in an emergency; silence is the signal. Escalation then goes to people your organisation chooses. This is the lightest-weight option. It works on ordinary phones, it is cheap to roll out across a team, and it produces a record. It cannot summon the emergency services itself, and it is only as good as your escalation contacts.

4. Buddy systems and manual check-ins

A colleague, manager or family member is told where a worker is going and when to expect them, and chases if they do not hear. Many organisations start here. It costs nothing in software and it works until it is forgotten: a supervisor is on leave, a phone call slips down the list, nobody writes down what happened. The usual reasons for moving to software are consistency and evidence, not that buddy systems are wrong in principle.

Where NALW fits

NALW is lone-worker check-in and escalation software. It is not a device service and it is not a monitored alarm service. Here is what it does:

• Scheduled check-ins by SMS, email, or a one-tap web link that works in any phone browser. Workers do not install an app. See check-ins.
• Follow-up when a check is missed. Reminders go first. If the worker still has not responded, Zoe, an AI voice assistant, phones them. See Zoe and AI calls.
• Escalation to your own nominated contacts, in the order you set, then an alert to the account owner by email, text and an AI call. See escalation.
• SOS and HELP. A worker can text SOS or HELP, or use the SOS option on the check-in page, to raise the alert straight away without waiting for a missed check. See panic and SOS.
• A full record of what was sent, what came back and who acknowledged. See compliance and reports.
• Last-known location captured when a worker taps to check in or raises SOS. It is a snapshot, not live tracking. See shifts and locations.

The full flow is on How it works and in the product tour.

What NALW does not do

• It is not BS 8484-accredited and is not an alarm receiving centre.
• It does not dispatch the police or any emergency service. The people your organisation nominates decide what to do, and where someone needs urgent help they should call 999.
• It is not staffed by people watching your workers. The follow-up is automated, and the responders are your own contacts.
• It has no hardware, so there is no fall detection or body-worn panic button.

Cost

NALW plans are fixed monthly prices: Lite is £49 a month for up to 3 workers, Pro £199 for up to 15 and Ultimate £599 for up to 50, with Enterprise on request. See pricing. There are no devices to buy. Device-and-ARC providers we checked quote per user after discussion rather than publishing prices, so compare the whole cost of ownership, including devices, airtime and the staff time to manage them.

Keep reading

For more background, read our guides on what a lone worker is, lone working and the law and what BS 8484 covers. Our free lone-working policy template and other resources are there to download. If you are thinking about staff concerns, see monitoring, privacy and employee confidence.

Frequently asked questions