Gallions Housing Association is using Europe’s smallest personal alarm to protect its lone workers. The MySoS devices allow users to discreetly raise an alarm, linked to Skyguard’s UK incident management centre. Skyguard reported that the total value of its contracts with Gallions Housing was now over of £31,000.
Gallions Housing’s decision to buy the MySoS devices was influenced by the fact that over half of the UK’s police forces use Skyguard to protect the most vulnerable people under their protection. Skyguard has unique reference numbers (URN) for all of the UK police forces which gives the company direct access to their control rooms, allowing controllers in Skyguard’s incident management centres to bypass the 999 service.
Barbara Tomlin, facilities Manager for Gallions Housing Association, said, “We wanted a fully-managed lone worker protection system for our neighbourhood service and revenue teams and grounds maintenance staff, and from personal experience, knowing that having a GPS location and not having to make a 999 call is a lot faster and more effective.
“What really set the MySOS apart from other devices is the small, compact design, and being similar to a key fob, it’s discreet and only weights 40 grams. Our staff like the fact that it can be worn behind their ID badges using the optional ID accessory.”
Skyguard’s custom-built secure online portal gives every Skyguard customer the ability to create new users, update vital information and assign devices to different users at the click of a button, with changes made immediately.
Tomlin said, “We have a couple of pooled devices for late workers. Someone can ask me if have a spare device because they’re working late tonight, and all I have to do is drag and drop the shared device onto the user in the online portal and they’re instantly covered.”
All of Gallions Housing’s lone workers are protected 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by Skyguard. If the worker feels threatened or at risk, help is just one button away. Once they receive an alarm, Skyguard’s controllers know who the user is and where they are (via GPS positioning). The controllers will then listen to what’s happening, and after reviewing all the information and the user’s personalised escalation instructions a course of action is decided; police or paramedic response may be requested, Skyguard’s 1,000+ vehicle national response service could be summoned, or someone designated by Gallions Housing.
