University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL) has become the first acute trust in the country to start using a safety app to keep colleagues safe.
The SafeZone App has gone live across the Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester General Hospital and Glenfield Hospital sites, including surrounding car parks. Colleagues can download the app, share their location, and alert security teams about any safety-related incidents, including violence or aggression, at the touch of a button.
The Trust has also become the first NHS organisation to join the SafeZone Alliance, working with the nearby University of Leicester to deploy the app across both of their sites. This means the hospital and the university can work together to provide support to each other’s staff and students, regardless of which site they are attending.
Kim Hudson, Head of Security at UHL, said: “The safety and wellbeing of our colleagues is a top priority for UHL, and we are always working to improve their experiences. Offering SafeZone across the Trust is a significant step in ensuring that our colleagues feel supported and empowered, so they can focus on delivering the best possible care to patients.
“The fact that our colleagues have immediate access to support at the push of a button is so reassuring. It means that whether they are managing a difficult situation such as an aggressive patient, have seen something that looks unusual and would like to report it, or want the peace of mind walking to our car parks or working alone, they can alert our security team straight away and get help quickly and easily, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Michelle Squires, a discharge support assistant at UHL, shared her experience of using the new app.
She said: “Recently we had a patient who required significant attention due to her aggressive behaviour. I decided to try the app for the first time to call for security assistance. Despite it being late in the evening, within just a few minutes I received a response from the team, and they were already on their way.
“What an impressive tool! I’ve encouraged my whole team to download the app as well. It really saves time and provides reassurance knowing help is on the way.”
The University of Leicester has been using the app to enhance safeguarding of its students and staff since 2018 and with the hospital coming on board, it means resources can be shared.
Professor Tom Robinson, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Head of the College of Life Sciences and Dean of Medicine at the University of Leicester, said: “The use of SafeZone across both the university and one of our major NHS partners, UHL, is excellent news, as it will provide reassurance of a single system to support and protect our large population of clinical staff and students.
“The benefits of the collaboration between the University of Leicester and UHL cannot be understated. It provides tremendous peace-of-mind to students, particularly those training in healthcare, who know that help is always just a tap away when they’re moving across the campus and the hospitals. This level of safeguarding goes a long way to supporting the next generation of healthcare professionals, so they can focus on their studies and flourish in a secure environment.”
The app has been developed by CriticalArc, a company providing emergency management solutions to organisations. Its Chief Operating Officer (COO), Darren Chalmers-Stevens, praised the city for its collaboration.
He said: “UHL and the University of Leicester have become the first SafeZone user organisations to join forces and offer a unified safety and security solution for their respective communities. This progressive approach demonstrates just how committed these two institutions are to protecting the wellbeing of staff, students, patients and the wider Leicester community, laying a path for others to follow.”
