ACPO Welcomes the Introduction of BS8484 for the Management of Lone Worker Services

Wed 13 Jan, 2010

Following the recent publication of BS8484, Ken Meanwell, Staff Officer of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Security Systems Group provides a police perspective of the new lone worker industry standard.

“ACPO welcomes the introduction of BS8484 for the management of Lone Worker Services.”

Prior to this standard calls for assistance for lone workers were ad hoc with no control or regulation over service providers. BS8484 has given the police service a framework to work with in order to bring them under the umbrella of the ACPO Security Systems Policy for police response. (Appendix V of the Policy refers). BS8484 should also assist police to identify those reputable service providers and have confidence in their ability to reduce false calls to the police and allow officers to respond with confidence to genuine calls for assistance.

Lone worker services are different from static intruder alarms therefore ACPO will evaluate the impact they have on the police service over a 12 month period starting on 1st February 2010. During this evaluation ACPO will liaise regularly with the approved monitoring stations and clients to see if any amendments or improvements are required.”