How organisations grow their safety culture

Great Western Air Ambulance Charity (GWAAC) is a life-saving air ambulance charity serving a population of 2.1 million across the Southwest England region. Providing critical care, and air and road ambulance services, they are one of the busiest air ambulance services in the UK, being called to over 5 incidents on average every day.

GWAAC don’t simply fly people to the nearest hospital. Their priority is to get to the patient fast. They treat people at the scene, on the road and in the air, providing complex interventions to stabilise and treat the patient and give them the best chance of a positive outcome. This service is reliant on their team of pilots, Specialist Paramedics and Consultant Doctors who specialise in pre-hospital care.

The GWAAC charity team, consisting of employees and volunteers, often carry out tasks on their own. Lone working tasks can include visiting local supporters and businesses to empty collections tins and encourage further support, working in their charity shops or in the office out of hours, giving talks, gathering donations with collection buckets, and some of the team often work from home and live alone.

"Just as the crew of Great Western Air Ambulance Charity are there for all our community, as a charity we want to be there for all our people. Each individual matters in our team of nearly 30 employees and over 100 active volunteers. We want them each to know that they are never really on their own when working with GWAAC, and GetHomeSafe helps us reassure them that we are looking after them".
Anna Perry, Chief Executive

“GetHomeSafe were extremely responsive, with great customer service, so deciding to go ahead was an easy choice.”
Judith Gordon, Business Manager

Lands and Survey is a professional services consultancy that offers planning, surveying and engineering services in the Northland and Auckland regions.

"The Lands and Survey team undertake a significant amount of fieldwork, much of which is in rural areas or far away. Staff often leave from home and we may not see them until the next day. We used to use a manual check-in check-out board, but the staff didn’t use it, and they couldn’t fill it in when leaving home. There was also the challenge of checking the board if the person was coming back late in the day. They needed a solution that would provide autonomy to these processes."

Since 2021, Lands and Survey have used GetHomeSafe to provide an easy-to-use solution for monitoring their employees out on the field.

"GetHomeSafe has allowed us to keep track of our team no matter where they leave from or where they go. If someone doesn’t check in on time the alerts ensure we can follow up with the staff member and check they are ok."

"Our team really enjoys using GetHomeSafe. It’s easy to use, field staff know they have someone watching out for them, and team leaders are comfortable that they know their team is ok."

Radfield Home Care is a network of domiciliary care providers based in Bourne End, South Buckinghamshire. They are focused on providing quality-led care to local communities to provide care to people in their own homes. Radfield Home Care focuses on enhancing the quality of life, relationships and social interaction for older people within the community, supporting their independence to allow them to continue to live in their own homes instead of potentially moving into residential care.

To provide this care to people in the community, the Wycombe, Beaconsfield and South Bucks branches of Radfield Home Care currently employs around 40 care professionals, who spend the majority of their time as lone workers out in the field with lots of driving involved.

"From a business perspective, GetHomeSafe helps in a number of ways. We have a more defined process for the care team to follow which helps them remember to check in when they return home. In addition, we can track where people are if we need to and from a regulatory standpoint it is beneficial. As a care provider, we are regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and there is a big focus on the management team implementing systems to ensure a safe and quality service. Utilising technology such as Get Home Safe is definitely a way to improve safety for our care professionals and is easily demonstrated to the regulator as well, which is highly beneficial when it comes to our inspections with the CQC."
Shelley Healey, Office Coordinator

Oshkosh are a leading American industrial company that designs and builds specialty trucks, military vehicles, truck bodies, airport fire apparatus, and aviation equipment. As a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Winconsin, they employ over 16,000 people across the world.

Oshkosh Aviation Services Aviation Services team work alone in aircraft hangers within confined spaces, often at height. Since 2017 the team have used GetHomeSafe to fill all their Lone Worker needs. Over time, the team's usage of GetHomeSafe has expanded to include travelling to and from work at night.

“We won an award in the Oshkosh Excellence Award's Quick Win category for our “Lone Worker Safety Program”. GetHomeSafe plays a significant and integral role in this program and is its cornerstone element. GetHomeSafe is utilized by our entire team on a regular basis, is tied into our Corporate Safety/Security program for additional support and provides team members the peace of mind to perform their job functions while alone, in confined spaces, or elevated with fall protection. We are big fans of GetHomeSafe and are so glad we have it in our tool bag to help keep our team members safe.”

The Horizons Regional Council (HRC) covers a large area of land in the North Island, 8% of New Zealand's total land area. The Horizon’s region is over 22,000 square km, or 2.2 million hectares. There are three major river systems, 230 lakes, the highest proportion of highly erodible land and many other statistics to highlight the geographical challenges and safety concerns within the region.

HRC is responsible for managing the region's natural resources, transport planning, responding to natural disasters and much more. The council has a large number of staff working in the field daily. Staff are frequently encountering these geographical challenges, with the addition of no phone reception in parts.

“The app provides peace of mind that we will be alerted if activities don’t go to plan. The GHS team are fantastic to deal with and it is great to see the app continually evolving.”