Do you even need one? (Almost certainly, yes.)
If any employee ever works out of sight or earshot of a colleague — a night-shift engineer, a community carer, a driver, a security officer, someone opening or closing up alone — you have lone workers, and you need a policy that says how you keep them safe.
Working alone isn't illegal. But sending people to do it without assessing and controlling the risk is where employers get caught out, both by the HSE and after an incident.
What UK law actually requires
There's no single 'Lone Worker Act'. Instead your duties come from the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, which require you to assess the risks to anyone affected by your work — including risks that arise specifically from working alone — and to do what is reasonably practicable to control them.
In plain terms: identify what could go wrong for someone working alone, decide how you'll prevent it or respond to it, write it down, tell your people, and keep it up to date.
What a lone worker policy must cover (your template)
A solid policy has these sections, and you can lift this list straight into a document:
1. Scope — who counts as a lone worker in your organisation, and in which situations. 2. Risk assessment — the specific hazards of working alone in your roles (violence, ill health with no help nearby, accidents, environment) and who's most exposed. 3. Controls — what you do to reduce each risk: training, restrictions on the highest-risk tasks, communication and check-in procedures. 4. Monitoring & check-in — how you'll know a lone worker is okay during a shift, and what happens if they don't check in. 5. Emergency procedure — exactly what happens when an alarm is raised or contact is lost, and who's responsible. 6. Training & responsibilities — what workers and managers must know and do. 7. Review — how often the policy and assessments are revisited (at least annually, or after any incident or change).
Where policy meets practice
The gap most policies leave is the middle-of-the-night reality: a document in a folder doesn't help a worker who's had an accident with no one around. That's why the 'monitoring' and 'emergency' sections are where a policy either works or doesn't.
This is where lone worker technology earns its place — automatic alerts, check-ins and location that turn a written procedure into an actual response. Vygard is built to be exactly that: the working end of your policy, so 'raise the alarm and get help to them' isn't just a paragraph, it's a system that runs.
Frequently asked questions
- Is it illegal for someone to work alone in the UK?
- No — working alone is legal. What the law requires is that you assess the extra risks of lone working and control them so far as is reasonably practicable. A lone worker policy is how you demonstrate you've done that.
- What does the HSE expect in a lone worker policy?
- The HSE expects a risk assessment specific to lone working, sensible controls, a way to keep in touch with and monitor lone workers, a clear emergency procedure, appropriate training, and regular review.
- How often should a lone worker policy be reviewed?
- At least annually, and additionally whenever there's a significant change to the work, a new risk, or after any incident or near-miss involving a lone worker.
- Do we need a lone worker device or app to comply?
- The law doesn't mandate a specific product, but it does require you to be able to monitor lone workers and respond to emergencies. For most roles, a lone worker app or device is the practical way to meet the monitoring and emergency-response parts of your policy.
Last updated 2026-09-14