COVER STORY
Be Alarmed, It’s Dangerous
Following recent studies into physical violence on NHS workers, Daniel Waring, CEO at Pinpoint Ltd, believes that personal protection alarms for staff are more imperative now than ever before.
Despite a reported improvement in the general morale of NHS workers, a new study has highlighted that an alarming and unacceptable one in six staff experiences physical violence while at work.
Highly aware of the risks of violence, most NHS workers know they constantly have to be on their guard.
The alarming violence statistic is one of the findings of the 2020 NHS Staff Survey recently published by the Survey Coordination Centre of the Picker Institute Europe.
Faced with this worrying level of violence, personal protection alarms are an absolutely essential tool to help to prevent potential violence from escalating, enabling a swiſt response to help the endangered staff member and patients.
The new statistics confirm that a personal protection alarm is an essential body-worn item for most nurses and care-workers.
The ability for an endangered staff member to summon help is critical in two scenarios:
Covert - A situation is evolving either between the staff member or a patient and another patient or a member of the public. Experience shows that the appearance of another staff member is frequently enough to diffuse a potentially aggressive situation. A method to secretly and silently summon assistance is needed.
Emergency - Where attack is imminent or in progress; the staff member needs to be able to summon the emergency response team without delay.
THE REQUIREMENT
The primary requirement of a personal attack alarm system is the ability to accurately detect where the threatened
- 12 -
staff member is located, and to inform the response team immediately.
A secondary requirement is for the system to detect whether the staff member is calling for assistance to surreptitiously appear; or summoning the emergency response team.
POTENTIAL TECHNOLOGIES
The options for wire-free transmission of information i.e. the link between transmitter and receiver(s), are based on radio, sound and light.
Of the three, main options sound is the weakest contender. We can quickly dismiss audible sound as it could not be used to covertly summon help and could be annoying to people nearby. It would also be prone to significant interference from other audible sound sources.
Ultrasonic signals could work - they are reasonably non- directional and are successfully reflected by most materials, so are likely to be picked up by the nearest receiver.
One of radio’s great strengths is that it can be designed to travel large distances and pass through buildings reasonably well. While that is great for communication, it creates a significant challenge because it makes it extremely difficult to identify a precise location. There are a whole range of radio technologies:
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee are all radio network protocols each have their own pros and cons, but have yet to find favour for attack alarm systems.
Ultra-wideband (UWB) uses a very low energy, high bandwidth signal. It claims to be able to locate assets or devices to an accuracy of around 100mm using multilateration techniques. We have yet to see this technology used in the personal attack alarm market, but it could be one to watch in the future.
www.tomorrowscare.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46
