TRAFFIC WARDENS, social workers, security guards; it's easy to come up with examples of workers who spend time on their own and whose work is likely to bring them face to face with irate or aggressive members of the public. But to the list of vulnerable lone workers we now have to add paramedics, utility meter readers, market researchers, even community nurses; people whose jobs are either innocuous or should put them on the side of the angels. More than half of all ambulance staff in an NHS survey of 200 000 employees in 2003 said they had suffered violent attacks, North of the border, the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 created a specific new offence of attacking emergency staff (with specific mention of midwives and paramedics) in recognition of the rising level of attacks. There is no consensus on the reasons for increased violence against public-facing workers, but what is clear is that employers have to take seriously their legal duty to protect their employees under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, when sending them out alone into this increasingly hostile environment.
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