Lone working policy template: every section explained, with a free download

A lone working policy is a short written statement of how your organisation keeps people who work alone safe: who counts as a lone worker, what the risks are, the controls you use, how workers keep in touch, how they raise the alarm, and what happens when they do. No UK law names it, but it is how most employers show they have met their duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 to assess and control the risks of working alone.

This guide goes through the policy section by section and explains what each one is for, so you can adapt the free template below rather than copy it. A policy that names your people, your sites and your procedures gets followed. A generic one gets filed.

What does the law require?

The law requires you to assess the risks of lone working, control them so far as is reasonably practicable, and give workers the information, training and supervision they need. Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 places the general duty on employers; regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires a suitable and sufficient risk assessment, recorded where there are five or more employees. HSE says plainly that it will often be safe to work alone, but the law requires you to think about and deal with any health and safety risks before people are allowed to do so.

HSE’s leaflet INDG73, Protecting lone workers, is the guidance inspectors refer to. It is short, free and worth reading before you write a word of policy. The sections below follow its structure.

Section 1: purpose and scope

State who the policy applies to and what it covers. Include employees, contractors and volunteers, and every kind of lone working you have: alone on a site, alone in a vehicle, alone in a customer’s home, alone in the community and alone at home. Scope matters because the people most often missed are the part-timers, the contractors and the person who covers the weekend.

Section 2: policy statement

Say what the organisation commits to in four or five sentences: assess before anyone works alone, put controls in place, make sure workers can keep in touch and raise the alarm, respond when they do, and review. Say that lone working is permitted only where the policy and the risk assessment are followed. Do not promise what you cannot deliver, such as a guaranteed response time, because the policy will be read after an incident.

Section 3: who counts as a lone worker

A lone worker is someone who works by themselves without close or direct supervision, which is HSE’s definition. List your own roles and activities, because a reader should be able to find themselves in the list. Typical entries: engineers attending sites alone, cleaners working outside office hours, carers on home visits, security officers on patrol, drivers, and staff who work from home.

Section 4: the law, in one paragraph

Name the Act and the Regulations, say there is no separate lone working law, and refer to INDG73. That is enough. A policy is not the place for a legal essay, but naming the duties shows the policy was written by someone who knows them, and it is the paragraph an inspector or an insurer looks for.

Section 5: responsibilities

Four groups of people need a line each. Directors resource the policy and review it. Line managers identify lone working in their teams, complete and review risk assessments, make sure the controls are in place and respond to alerts. Lone workers follow the assessment and the policy, keep in touch as agreed, raise concerns, and stop and withdraw if they feel unsafe. Responders, the named people who take alerts, acknowledge promptly, follow the response procedure and record the outcome.

The last group is the one most policies forget. If nobody is named as a responder, an alert has nowhere to go.

Section 6: risk assessment

Say that every lone working activity is risk assessed before it starts, what the assessment considers, and when it is reviewed. The assessment should cover the place, the task, the people likely to be met, the time of day, the worker’s health and experience, travel, and how help would be summoned and how long it would take to arrive. Link to your risk assessment template so managers use the same one.

Section 7: controls

List the kinds of control you use, so managers have a menu to pick from when they assess a task. Avoiding lone working for the highest risk tasks, or requiring two people. Training in the task, in personal safety and in the safety app or device. Information about the site or the customer before the visit. Equipment: a phone with the safety app, a personal alarm or a dedicated lone worker device. Limits on hours and on night work. Safe driving arrangements. HSE’s guidance on violence at work is the reference for the people risks, which are the ones lone workers in care, housing and security face most.

Section 8: keeping in touch

This is the section that decides whether anyone notices when something goes wrong, so write it as a procedure, with numbers. State how a lone worker signals the start and end of lone working (in SafetyEvo, starting and ending a shift in the app), what is shared while they work (their location, only during the shift), how often they check in for higher risk tasks and what interval you use (15 to 60 minutes is typical), and how a supervisor can check on them (a welfare check with a deadline to answer).

HSE’s guidance on training, supervision and monitoring expects the level of contact to match the risk: a worker visiting an unfamiliar address at night needs more contact than one in a familiar office out of hours.

Section 9: raising the alarm

State exactly how a worker calls for help and what happens next. In SafetyEvo the worker holds SOS for two seconds; a short countdown lets a pocket press be cancelled; then the office is alerted with the worker’s location, and the worker’s screen shows who has acknowledged. Also say when to call 999 directly, and how a worker signals that they are being forced to cancel an alarm (a duress PIN). Keep the wording honest: the office is alerted. Do not promise police attendance unless you have a contract with an alarm receiving centre that provides it.

Section 10: responding to an alert

Write the escalation ladder into the policy: who is alerted first, second and third, by which channels, and how long each has before the next is tried. Then say what the responder does: phone the worker, send the nearest colleague, call the emergency services with the location, contact the site. Say that a missed check-in or a phone that stops reporting during a shift is treated as an alert until the worker is confirmed safe, and that every step is recorded. An alert with no named owner is the failure mode every lone worker incident report describes.

Sections 11 to 13: incidents, training and data

Incidents and near misses are recorded and investigated, reportable ones go to HSE under RIDDOR, and the arrangements are reviewed after each one. Every lone worker gets the policy, their risk assessment, training in the controls and in the app, and a named person to raise concerns with; HSE expects you to consult staff on arrangements like these. Finally, because a safety app collects location, say when it is collected (only during a shift), who can see it, that access is logged, and how long it is kept. The ICO’s guidance on monitoring workers is the reference, and a one paragraph data section in the policy, backed by a staff privacy notice, meets most of what it asks.

How to use the template

• Replace every item in square brackets with your own names, times and procedures. Search for "[" when you think you have finished.
• Delete the kinds of lone working you do not have and the controls you do not use. Shorter and true beats long and aspirational.
• Write the escalation ladder with real names and real phone numbers, and test it: raise a drill alert and time how long it takes to be acknowledged.
• Give it a version number, an owner and a review date, and put the review in someone’s calendar.
• Train everyone in it in a 20 minute session, and keep the attendance list.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• HSE: Protect lone workers
• HSE: Lone working, what employers must do
• HSE INDG73: Protecting lone workers, how to manage the risks of working alone
• Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (legislation.gov.uk)
• HSE: Lone working, training, supervision and monitoring
• HSE: Lone working and violence
• HSE: Consulting and involving your workers
• HSE: RIDDOR, reporting injuries and incidents
• ICO: Monitoring workers (UK GDPR guidance)