Lone Working Policy for Care Services: What It Must Cover
What a lone working policy for a care service must cover: the law behind it, the risks that are specific to home visits and night shifts, the check-in and no-reply procedures, and how to prove staff have read it.
By HeroDocs Team
A lone working policy sets out how you keep staff safe when they work without a colleague nearby, and in care that is most of the job. A domiciliary carer on a 7am call, a support worker on a waking night in a supported living house, and a care home's night senior covering two floors are all lone workers. The law expects you to have thought through their risks before they start.
Search for a lone working policy and you mostly find templates written for offices, warehouses and parish councils. They cover the legal duty well enough, but they miss what makes care different: the workplace is someone else's home, the person you are visiting may be the one who needs help, and a missed check-in could mean a carer in trouble or a client on the floor.
What the law says about lone working
Working alone is legal. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) says employers "must manage any health and safety risks before people can work alone", and that duty covers anyone contracted to work for you, self-employed carers included.
The duty comes from two pieces of law:
The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 places a general duty on you to protect the health, safety and welfare of your staff.
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require a risk assessment that includes lone workers. HSE says you must train, supervise and monitor them, keep in touch with them and respond to any incident.
HSE's lone working leaflet adds that if you employ five or more workers, you must write down what your risk assessment found. Most care services pass that number quickly.
CQC does not enforce staff health and safety law, which sits with HSE and your local authority. CQC still sees the results. Regulation 18 requires that staff "receive such appropriate support, training, professional development, supervision and appraisal as is necessary to enable them to carry out the duties they are employed to perform", and a carer sent out alone with no training in what to do when a visit turns unsafe is hard to defend under that wording.
Who counts as a lone worker in your service
HSE defines lone workers as people who "work by themselves without close or direct supervision". In a care service, that usually means:
domiciliary carers on single-handed calls, including the drive between them
staff on waking or sleep-in nights in supported living
night staff in small care homes where one person covers a unit or floor
managers doing out-of-hours on-call visits
staff taking a person out alone into the community
office staff opening up or locking up an empty building
Write your own list into the policy. A generic definition leaves staff guessing whether it applies to them, and a list of real roles settles it.
The risks that are specific to care
Your risk assessment should start with the work your staff do, because a generic hazard list misses most of it. The six below turn up in care far more than in office work, and an office template will not prompt you to think about them.
Someone else's home. You do not control the premises. Loose carpets, poor lighting, dogs, smoking, hoarding, broken equipment and steep stairs all belong to the client, yet your carer still has to work there. Record known hazards on the care plan and in the visit notes so the next carer walks in prepared.
Other people in the house. Relatives, partners and visitors can be the risk, especially where there is a history of conflict, substance misuse or a safeguarding concern. HSE's definition of violence includes verbal threats, so a carer being shouted at on the doorstep counts.
Night work. HSE lists late evening and early morning work as a key violence risk because fewer people are around. In a care home at 3am that same fact means there may be no one to help with a fall or a medical emergency.
Driving. HSE notes that many lone workers face road risks. For domiciliary care, the car is the workplace between calls: winter roads, rural lanes with no signal, and parking in unlit streets.
Moving and handling. Single-handed calls should never include tasks the care plan says need two people. Your policy should say plainly that a carer stops and calls the office rather than attempt a two-person transfer alone.
The carer's own health. HSE says you should get medical advice if you are unsure whether someone's health condition makes it safe for them to work alone. Pregnancy, diabetes and epilepsy are the common ones, and the conversation should include the person themselves.
What your lone working policy must cover
A lone working policy for a care service should answer the ten questions below. If a new starter cannot find the answer in under a minute, rewrite the section.
Which roles and situations count as lone working in your service?
Who assesses each client's home and each lone role, how often is it reviewed, and where are the results kept?
What must staff never do alone? Two-person transfers, and entering a home where a known risk person is present, are the usual examples.
How do staff confirm they have arrived and left, how often, and by what means: call monitoring, a lone worker app or a text to the on-call phone?
When a check-in is missed, who notices, how long do they wait, who do they call, and when does it go to the police? Put real times in.
What does a carer do when a client does not answer the door? This protects the client as much as the carer, so link it to your safeguarding and missing person procedures.
Can staff leave a visit if they feel at risk? Say yes in writing, and say they will not be disciplined for it.
Which contact numbers, on-call rota and first aid arrangements apply, and do lone workers carry a kit?
How do staff report incidents, near misses and verbal abuse, and who reviews the reports?
What training do lone workers get before they start, and how does supervision pick up stress or isolation?
The no-reply visit: where most policies go thin
Domiciliary care policies often say "follow the no-reply procedure" and stop there. A good one gives the carer a sequence they can follow at the door with their heart rate up:
knock, ring and call the client's phone
look through windows if it is safe to do so
call the office or on-call manager, who checks hospital admissions, family contacts and any message the client left
agree a time limit for each step, after which the manager decides whether to call the police or ambulance service
The carer should never force entry alone. If the key safe is used and the client is found injured, the carer is now in an emergency, and the lone working and emergency sections of your policy both apply.
Write down what happened at each step. If the outcome is serious, you may need to notify CQC, and the record is your evidence of a prompt, reasonable response. Our guide to CQC statutory notifications lists which events you must report.
When something does go wrong
Violence against a worker that keeps them off their normal duties for more than seven days is reportable to HSE under RIDDOR. Our RIDDOR guide for care services explains the deadlines and how to decide. Below that threshold, record it anyway. Patterns in verbal abuse at one address or one time of day are how a risk assessment improves.
Look after the person too. HSE says employers should support workers who have experienced violence, and lone working can cause work-related stress even when nothing dramatic happens. Supervision is the obvious place to ask how staff are coping on solo calls.
Proving staff have read your lone working policy
The policy only protects people who know what it says. An inspector, an insurer or an HSE investigator after an incident will want to see two things: that the policy existed, and that the person involved had read and understood it.
A signed sheet in a binder is weak evidence and easy to lose. Most providers now send policies to staff digitally and keep a record of who has signed. In HeroDocs you can send a policy for sign-off and track who has signed, with reminders for anyone who has not. When you change the check-in times or the on-call number, send the new version and the record shows who has seen it.
Review it when the work changes
Review your lone working policy at least once a year, and sooner when something changes: a new rural run, a new client with a known risk, a switch to a lone worker app, or an incident that exposed a gap. Our guide to care home policies and procedures covers the full set of policies a care service needs, and how they fit together.
Last checked: 6 October 2026.