# The Sentry — Full Content

> The Sentry is a UK lone worker safety platform for every UK business with mobile or isolated staff. Originally built for estate agents, it now serves 21 industries across the whole UK lone worker market. It provides a home-screen widget SOS, loud or silent panic alarms, live GPS tracking, automatic video capture, a Lone Worker Timer, a fake-call de-escalation feature, whistleblowing-compliant incident reporting, and a compliance audit trail — all accessible via a smartphone app and a cloud-based admin portal. Price: £39.50 per user, per year (+VAT). No setup fees, no hardware, no contract lock-in.

The Sentry is tailored to 21 UK lone-working industries (healthcare, social care, housing, real estate, field engineering, logistics, security, retail, construction, agriculture, charities, education, and more), with the property sector retained as one of them. It helps UK employers satisfy their legal obligations under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, the Worker Protection Act 2023 (WPA 2023), the Employment Rights Act 2025 (ERA 2025), and the EHRC 8-Step Employer Guidance on preventing sexual harassment at work. Deployment takes under one hour.

Founded in 2019 by Rebecca Evans. UK-based. The platform covers both lone workers in the field and all office-based staff (harassment protection applies to everyone, not just those working alone).

**Industries hub**: https://thesentry.co.uk/industries (21 industry pages: healthcare, social care, housing, real estate, field engineering, logistics, security, retail, construction, agriculture, charity, education, and more)
**Contact**: info@thesentry.co.uk | https://thesentry.co.uk/book-demo
**Price**: £39.50 per user, per year (+VAT)
**Sitemap**: https://thesentry.co.uk/sitemap-index.xml

---

## Lone Working Policy for Community Health Teams: A Practical Guide

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/lone-working-policy-for-community-health-teams-a-practical-guide
**Published**: 2026-09-02
**Updated**: 2026-09-02
**Category**: Technology & Implementation
**Author**: The Sentry Compliance Team

## Lone Working Policy for Community Health Teams: A Practical Guide

Most lone working policy templates in circulation were written for offices, warehouses or retail units. They talk about locking up at the end of a shift, working late in an empty building, or being the last person on site. None of that maps cleanly onto a district nurse, health visitor or community mental health worker who spends their entire working day moving between other people's homes, entering premises they've often never seen before, with no fixed base to check in from and no colleague within shouting distance. If your community health service is relying on a generic policy, it likely doesn't meet the standard you actually need.

Here's what a lone working policy built specifically for home-visiting community health staff needs to cover, and why.

## The legal baseline every policy has to meet

Before anything sector-specific, a lone working policy has to satisfy the general duty every employer carries under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, sections 2 and 3, and the specific requirement in regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment covering lone working. HSE's own guidance, INDG73, is explicit on one point that trips up a lot of policies: a standard mobile phone is not, by itself, an adequate control measure. It can fail, run out of charge, have no signal inside certain buildings, or simply not be reachable if someone is incapacitated.

On top of that baseline, two more recent obligations apply directly. Since October 2024, the Worker Protection Act 2023 has required employers to take proactive, reasonable steps to prevent harassment of staff by third parties, including patients, service users and members of the public, with a 25% uplift on relevant tribunal awards where that duty is breached. The Employment Rights Act 2025 is expected to raise this to an "all reasonable steps" standard, commencement anticipated around October 2026, meaning employers will need to show a genuinely comprehensive set of measures, not a token gesture. The Equality and Human Rights Commission's 8-step framework for tackling harassment gives a useful structure for evidencing this, particularly its points on risk assessment, reporting mechanisms, and monitoring and evaluation.

## What "all reasonable steps" actually looks like for home visits

A policy that would satisfy this standard for community health staff needs to go further than a written statement of intent. In practice, that means:

**A documented risk assessment that's specific to the visit type, not just the job title.** A first visit to an unknown household carries different risk from a routine follow-up to a known, low-risk patient. A policy that treats every visit identically isn't suitable and sufficient in the sense MHSWR regulation 3 requires.

**A means of raising an alarm that doesn't depend on the worker being able to make a phone call.** If someone is incapacitated, threatened, or in a situation where speaking aloud would escalate risk, a phone call isn't a realistic option. This is precisely the gap HSE flags when it says a mobile phone alone isn't adequate.

**A way for someone else to know if a visit hasn't gone to plan, without the worker having to ask for help.** Automated check-in expectations, with escalation if a worker doesn't confirm they're safe within an expected window, close the gap between "the worker could call for help" and "someone will actually notice if they can't."

**A clear, private way to report incidents after the fact**, including near misses and situations that didn't become physically dangerous but still felt unsafe. Under-reporting of exactly this kind of incident is a well-documented problem in community nursing, and a policy that makes reporting easy and confidential will surface more of the picture than one that relies on formal incident forms alone.

**An evidence trail that demonstrates the steps were actually taken**, not just documented on paper. Given the direction of travel toward an "all reasonable steps" legal standard, being able to show that check-ins happened, alarms were available and incidents were logged in real time is materially stronger evidence than a policy document sitting in a folder.

## Building or updating your policy: a practical checklist

- Confirm your current policy names a specific, working method of raising an alarm beyond a phone call, and that every home-visiting role is covered, not just those flagged as "high risk."
- Check that risk assessments are refreshed per visit or per patient, not set once and left unreviewed.
- Confirm someone is notified automatically, not manually, if a staff member fails to check in as expected.
- Make sure incident reporting is private enough that staff will actually use it, and that the record is timestamped and auditable.
- Review the policy against the Worker Protection Act 2023 and the anticipated Employment Rights Act 2025 standard specifically, not just general health and safety law, since this is the area currently attracting tribunal attention.
- Set a review date. A lone working policy for community health should be revisited at least annually, and sooner if incident data or national guidance changes materially.

## How The Sentry helps

Every item on that checklist maps directly onto a feature built for exactly this use case. Automated timed check-ins mean a manager is alerted automatically, with no manual chasing, if a home-visiting worker doesn't confirm they're safe within the expected window. A one-touch panic alarm, triggered from a widget on the home screen with no app to open and no login screen to navigate, works even when making a phone call isn't realistic, and records immediately to support any follow-up. Live GPS tracking gives a real-time picture of where staff are without requiring them to actively report in. Private, encrypted incident reporting makes it easy for staff to log a concern, including near misses, in a way that builds a genuine audit trail rather than a folder of paper forms. And because the whole system comes with a compliance documentation pack, community health services get a ready-made evidence base for demonstrating "all reasonable steps" rather than having to assemble one from scratch. At £39.50 per user per year, with no hardware to procure and deployment in under an hour, it's a realistic way to close the gap this article describes without a lengthy procurement process. More detail is on our [community healthcare industry page](/industries/community-healthcare).

## Key dates

- **October 2024**: Worker Protection Act 2023 proactive duty came into force, with a 25% tribunal uplift for breaches.
- **October 2026 (anticipated)**: Employment Rights Act 2025 "all reasonable steps" standard expected to commence.
- **Annually, at minimum**: recommended review point for any community health lone working policy.

## Frequently asked questions

**Is a mobile phone enough for a community health lone working policy?**
No. HSE guidance (INDG73) states clearly that a standard mobile phone is not, on its own, an adequate control measure for a genuine lone working risk, since it can fail, lose signal, or simply not help if a worker is unable to use it.

**What's the legal minimum standard for a lone working policy in community health?**
At minimum, a suitable and sufficient risk assessment under regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, alongside reasonable steps to prevent third-party harassment under the Worker Protection Act 2023, which has applied since October 2024.

**What is the "all reasonable steps" standard, and does it apply yet?**
It's an upgraded standard expected under the Employment Rights Act 2025, raising the bar from "reasonable steps" to "all reasonable steps" for preventing harassment of staff by third parties. Commencement is anticipated around October 2026, so services should be preparing now rather than waiting.

**How often should a lone working policy for home visits be reviewed?**
At least annually, and sooner if there's a material change in incident data, staffing patterns, or the legal standard itself, such as the anticipated commencement of the Employment Rights Act 2025 provisions.

**Does an app on its own satisfy the legal requirement?**
No single tool satisfies the requirement on its own. A compliant policy needs a documented risk assessment, a genuine means of raising an alarm, a way to detect if something has gone wrong, and an evidence trail. A well-chosen app can support all of these, but the underlying policy and risk assessment still need to exist.

> If you're updating your lone working policy and want a system that already evidences "all reasonable steps," [book a demo](/book-demo) to see how The Sentry fits community health teams.

*This article was written by The Sentry Compliance Team.*

---

## Panic Alarm Apps: What UK Lone Workers Actually Need

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/panic-alarm-apps-what-uk-lone-workers-actually-need
**Published**: 2026-08-12
**Category**: Technology & Implementation
**Author**: Stuart Evans

## Most panic alarm apps don't do what employers assume they do

Right, let's deal with the elephant in the room. "Panic alarm app", or a lone worker panic button app as it's often searched for, gets used as a catch-all for anything with a big red button on it. In practice, the apps sold under that name in the UK range from a genuinely useful safety tool to little more than a glorified SOS call with a monthly invoice attached. If you're choosing one, for care staff, housing officers, engineers, estate agents, or any employee who works alone, or is in a people-facing role, the differences between them matter more than the marketing suggests.

Most are built with the worker alone in mind, which is the right starting point but not the whole picture. The best ones function as a genuine business protection app as much as a personal safety tool, helping prove the employer is meeting the UK's tightening employment law, from the Worker Protection Act 2023 to the Employment Rights Act 2025's "all reasonable steps" duty arriving in October 2026. This guide covers what a genuinely useful panic alarm app needs to do, and where most providers in this market fall short.

## What a panic alarm app is actually for

A panic alarm app is a mobile app that lets a lone worker send an instant alert the moment they feel unsafe. It exists for one moment: the point where a lone worker feels unsafe right now and needs to raise an alert without fumbling through menus, dialling 999, or trying to describe where they are. That's a different job to a check-in app, which manages routine, lower-risk visits by logging arrival and departure and escalating if a worker misses a scheduled check-in.

The two aren't interchangeable, and a good UK lone worker safety tool needs both: a panic alarm for the moment something goes wrong, and a check-in system for the ordinary working day. Judge any app on whether it genuinely covers both, not just whichever one is easiest to demo.

> Worryingly, only around 7.5% of the UK's 8 to 9 million lone workers are covered by any dedicated app. The other 92.5% rely on WhatsApp, a personal mobile call, or nothing at all.

## What separates a serious panic alarm app from a basic one

Four things decide whether a panic alarm app is a genuine safety tool or just a button with a headline feature list: how easy the alarm is to trigger, what alarm options it gives the worker, what happens the second it's triggered, and what record it leaves behind.

**Ease of triggering.** A panic alarm is only as good as how fast and discreetly it can be set off. Several UK apps still require a worker to open the app, log in, and navigate to the right screen before an alert goes anywhere, which matters far less in a demo than in a real confrontation. The Sentry's alarms are one-touch widgets on the phone or tablet's home screen: no unlocking the phone, no opening the app, no login, nothing to type. That single touch is also what makes it discreet, since raising it doesn't require visibly opening and navigating an app in front of whoever's causing the concern.

**The alarm choice.** A genuinely useful app offers two distinct alarms, silent and loud, not one alarm with a volume toggle. The Sentry's version: both alarms record video throughout, and the silent alarm also records audio. The loud alarm doesn't, because a phone can't sound an audible siren and capture clean audio at the same time. That's not a limitation to gloss over; it's the reason the choice exists. Which alarm to use is the worker's own judgement call: a loud siren can deter an aggressor and draw immediate attention, but it also announces the alert, which isn't always safer. A silent alarm avoids escalating the situation while quietly building a video and audio record. Neither is universally better; a serious app gives the worker both and doesn't force the choice.

**The response.** This is the part that turns "an alert was sent" into "help is actually on the way", and it's where most apps stop short. With The Sentry, triggering an alarm alerts every contact the worker has nominated as an alert recipient, everyone on that person's own list, not just a single manager or call centre. Each recipient is notified immediately, and the worker's location appears on a live map inside the app. Any recipient can tap a button to say they're responding, drawing a live line on the map from them to the worker. There's no limit on how many can respond at once; every responder shows on the map simultaneously, each with their own line, so the worker can see who's coming, how many, and how close they are. That real-time visibility is a genuine difference between apps, not a minor feature.

**The evidence.** Whichever alarm is used, the recording works two ways: it can support a worker's account if they're accused of misconduct, and equally substantiate it if they were put at risk. Framed correctly, this is protection for the worker, not surveillance of them. The evidence isn't only video: the worker's geo-stamped location and the exact time the alarm was raised are also logged on the management portal as part of their activity record, forming a provable audit trail alongside the recording, not instead of it.

## Where most panic alarm apps fall short

Looking across the UK market, the gaps tend to cluster in the same places:

- **Slow or multi-step triggering.** Several apps require a worker to unlock their phone, open the app, log in, and find the right screen before an alert goes anywhere. In a genuine confrontation, those seconds and that visible fumbling matter.
- **Hardware dependency.** Several established providers still centre their offer on a wearable device or ID-badge alarm; StaySafe, SoloProtect, Peoplesafe and Vatix all sell hardware-led or hardware-optional tiers. Hardware adds cost, adds a device that can be left at a desk or run out of charge, and typically comes with a multi-year contract.
- **Headline pricing that isn't the real price.** StaySafe's advertised rate of roughly £39.60 a year climbs to £114 to £180-plus a year once the add-ons that matter (monitoring, escalation, extra features) are included, alongside a 36-month lock-in. Safepoint, with alarm receiving centre (ARC) monitoring included, sits at £120 to £150 a year. Vatix starts from a £71-plus base, with hardware and ARC monitoring added on top of that. The Sentry, by contrast, is £39.50 per user, per year, all-in: no add-on modules, no hardware, no lock-in (prices correct at time of writing).
- **No video capture.** Several of the above providers offer location and audio-based alerting but not automatic video, which matters if the point of the alarm is to create a clear, objective record of what happened.
- **No genuine peer-to-peer response.** Many apps stop at "an alert was sent to a manager or monitoring centre." Fewer let every nominated contact see the alert, the location, and each other's response in real time.
- **No whistleblowing-compliant reporting.** With the Employment Rights Act 2025 bringing new whistleblowing protections into force from April 2026, an incident-reporting tool that doesn't handle this properly is a growing gap, not a minor one.

None of this means every panic alarm app on the market is inadequate; some of it is a genuine trade-off (a monitored ARC service has its place for very high-risk roles). But "it has a panic button" is not, on its own, a reason to choose one app over another.

Here's how the headline numbers stack up:

| Provider | Advertised from | Realistic all-in | Contract | Hardware |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| The Sentry | £39.50 / user / yr | £39.50 / user / yr | Annual, no lock-in | None |
| StaySafe | ~£39.60 / user / yr | £114 to £180+ / user / yr | 36-month lock-in reported | Optional |
| Safepoint | ARC monitoring incl. | £120 to £150 / user / yr | Check current terms | None |
| Vatix | £71+ / user / yr | Higher with ARC + hardware | Annual | Optional |
| Peoplesafe | Custom | Custom | Check current terms | Often required |
| SoloProtect | Custom | Custom | Check current terms | Often required |

Treat that table as a starting point, not a verdict. Provider pricing, contract structures and hardware requirements change frequently, so confirm current terms directly with each provider before you decide.

## The legal backdrop, briefly

UK employers already carry a duty of care to lone workers under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (sections 2 and 3) and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (regulation 3). HSE guidance INDG73 is explicit that a standard mobile phone, on its own, is not an adequate control measure.

The Worker Protection Act 2023, live since October 2024, introduced a proactive duty to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment, backed by a 25% uplift on relevant tribunal awards. The Employment Rights Act 2025 raises that bar further to an "all reasonable steps" duty, anticipated to take effect in October 2026, alongside new whistleblowing protections from April 2026. None of this is sector-specific; it applies to any UK employer with staff working alone, whatever the industry.

| Date | What changes |
| --- | --- |
| **October 2024** | Worker Protection Act 2023 live, proactive duty to prevent harassment, +25% tribunal uplift |
| **April 2026** | Employment Rights Act 2025 whistleblowing protections come into force |
| **October 2026** (anticipated) | Employment Rights Act 2025 "all reasonable steps" duty |

## How The Sentry approaches this

Right, here's the practical bit. The Sentry is a software-only lone worker protection app, priced per user, so employers only pay for the people who actually need protection rather than a blanket enterprise licence. There's no hardware, no multi-year lock-in, and deployment takes under an hour.

Its alarm and response process is exactly as described above: two one-touch alarms, silent and loud, with the response reaching every nominated contact instantly and the live map showing exactly who is responding and how close they are. Every account also comes with three free Friends & Family licences, so a worker's own trusted contacts can be part of that alert network too, not just their employer. Those licences go further than alert recipients: an employee can hand them to their own loved ones, a partner, their children, an elderly parent, so the people they care about most are protected by the same app. It's a small thing, but it lowers the friction of getting staff to actually install and use the tool, and it says something bigger, that the employer treats wellbeing as personal, not just a compliance line.

The live map isn't only for alarm responses. Anyone in a worker's network who is currently checked in appears on the same map at the same time, with no limit on how many people can be shown together. A team of ten checked in at once can all see one another, so the map works as a general safety picture as well as an alarm response tool. Many firms use exactly this feature when they're attending events and large trade shows, simply to find one another on a busy floor.

Alongside the alarms sits a configurable check-in timer: employees set up their own check-in reminder durations and run it as active monitoring with automatic escalation on a missed check-in, or, for lower-risk premises-based work, as a simple arrival and departure log without an active escalation trigger. Which mode fits which role is a risk-assessment decision for the employer, not something the app dictates.

Incident reporting is built into the same app: typed or dictated notes, exact location, time and date, and photos, logged together and automatically routed to the designated report receivers for that team member. Reports are submitted privately from the user's own smartphone, giving employees a secure way to raise a concern under the whistleblowing protections coming into force via the Employment Rights Act 2025 in April 2026.

If you want this mapped to your specific sector's risks, [book a free demo](/book-demo) and we'll walk through it against your own risk profile.

## Five things to check before you sign

Quick checklist. Before you commit to any panic alarm platform, get these answers in writing:

1. **How many touches to raise the alarm?** If the answer is "open the app and log in first", keep looking. Under stress, that's the difference between an alert and an incident.
2. **Does it capture video, or just audio and location?** Audio alone is a "he said, she said" record. Video is objective.
3. **Who sees the alert, and can they see each other responding?** A single manager ping is not the same as a live map with multiple responders.
4. **What's the real price, and is there a lock-in?** Get the all-in figure, including monitoring and hardware, and the minimum term in writing.
5. **Does the incident reporting handle whistleblowing properly?** From April 2026, that's not a nice-to-have.

> If you lead safety, HR or operations for a UK employer with lone workers, [book a free demo](/book-demo). I'm genuinely interested in what duty of care looks like from where you're sitting.

## FAQ

**What's the difference between a panic alarm app and a check-in app?**
A panic alarm app is for the moment a worker feels unsafe and needs to raise an immediate alert. A check-in app manages routine visits, logging arrival and departure and escalating on a missed check-in. A complete lone worker safety tool needs both, not one or the other.

**What actually happens when a panic alarm is triggered?**
With The Sentry, every contact the worker has nominated as an alert recipient gets an immediate notification, and the worker's location appears on a live map. Recipients can mark themselves as responding, which shows the worker exactly who is coming and how close they are.

**Do panic alarm apps record audio?**
It depends on the alarm used. With The Sentry, the silent alarm records both video and audio; the loud alarm records video only, because a phone can't sound an audible siren and capture clean audio at the same time.

**Is a mobile phone alone enough to meet UK lone worker duty of care?**
No. HSE guidance (INDG73) states explicitly that a standard mobile phone is not an adequate control measure on its own for lone worker safety. A smartphone running a dedicated personal safety app falls outside that "standard mobile phone" bracket, which is the whole point of installing one.

**How much should a panic alarm app cost?**
Software-only apps in the UK typically range from £30 to £60 per user, per year. Hardware-plus-monitoring options run considerably higher, from roughly £120 to £250 per user, per year, once add-ons and lock-in contracts are factored in.

---

*This article was written by [Stuart Evans](https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartajevans/), co-founder of The Sentry.*

---

## What UNISON's 2025 Survey Reveals About Housing Staff Safety

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/what-unisons-2025-survey-reveals-about-housing-staff-safety
**Published**: 2026-08-11
**Updated**: 2026-08-11
**Category**: Tribunals & Financial Risk
**Author**: Stuart Evans

## The 72% number, and the one underneath it that matters more

UNISON's Housing Worker Survey 2024-25 landed in October 2025, and the headline figure does the heavy lifting in most of the coverage: 72% of housing workers experienced violence at work in the past year. That's a striking enough number on its own.

Thing is, the figure that should actually keep a housing employer awake at night sits one layer down. Of the workers who experienced violence, 40% said they weren't properly supported afterwards. Half said their employer took no action at all to stop it happening again.

Read those two together and it stops being a violence statistic. It becomes a description of a duty-of-care gap that already exists in UK law, playing out in a sector that hasn't caught up to how bad it's got. The incident rate is the symptom. The response, or the lack of it, is where the legal exposure actually lives.

What follows takes that apart properly: what UNISON found, what the law already requires of housing employers, where the two diverge, and what a defensible response actually looks like in practice.

## What UNISON's 2024-25 survey actually found

The survey pulled in over 1,100 responses from housing workers across the UK, which makes it the largest, most current picture of what this job actually involves right now. A few of the headline numbers:

- **72%** experienced violence at work in the past year.
- **77%** described the work as stressful, and four in five said pressures have worsened over recent years.
- A quarter had taken time off work due to stress.
- **57%** were asked to take on duties outside their remit.
- Nearly a third manage patches of more than 1,000 homes, and over three-quarters report supporting a growing number of high-need tenants.

The number that doesn't always make the summary write-ups is the scope creep. Fifty-seven percent taking on duties outside their remit isn't a footnote; it changes the risk profile of the role. UNISON's own framing is pretty direct about it. Housing staff increasingly feel like untrained social or support workers, firefighting one crisis after another. That's a workforce carrying more complexity than it was built for, and the safety implications flow directly from it.

## The gap that matters most: what happens after an incident

The violence figure gets the attention. Fair enough. But for an employer reading this survey, the response to that violence is the part that should really worry you.

Of the workers who experienced violence, 40% said they weren't adequately supported afterwards. Half said their employer took no steps to prevent it happening again. Read together, that's UNISON describing a workforce where a violent incident is often neither properly followed up nor used to protect the next person who walks into that same situation.

That gap is where legal exposure actually sits. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers to assess and manage risks to their staff, including lone workers. The duty is to do something about the risk, not simply note that an incident happened and move on.

An employer with no record, no follow-up and no pattern-tracking can't demonstrate that duty is being met. They also have nothing to point to in support of the Worker Protection Act 2023's "reasonable steps" defence if a harassment claim follows, because that defence depends on being able to show what was actually done.

It's about to get harder. The Employment Rights Act 2025 is anticipated to raise the bar to "all reasonable steps" from October 2026. A weak record becomes an even weaker defence.

## What the law requires, and where the survey says you're exposed

It's worth being precise about how the legal duties and the survey findings sit against each other, because this is where a housing provider's actual exposure concentrates.

| What the law requires | What it asks of you | What UNISON found |
|---|---|---|
| Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 + MHSWR 1999 | Assess and manage lone-working risk, including violence from tenants | 72% experienced violence in the past year |
| Worker Protection Act 2023 (in force) | Take "reasonable steps" to prevent third-party harassment, and be able to show them | 50% of employers took no steps after an incident |
| Employment Rights Act 2025 (from October 2026) | "All reasonable steps" against third-party harassment | 40% of workers not adequately supported afterwards |

The pattern UNISON describes, no support and no prevention, is exactly the pattern this legal framework is designed to catch out. None of this needs a hypothetical tribunal case to take it seriously. It's a description of what non-compliance with an existing duty looks like in practice, drawn from over a thousand workers in the sector.

Read more about how The Sentry supports lone worker safety across the sector on our [social housing industry page](/industries/social-housing).

## Why the risk is rising: caseloads, complexity and the recruitment crisis

UNISON's survey points to a workforce under growing strain, not a static risk. Over half of housing employers are struggling to fill vacant roles, and many are turning to agency staff to cover the gap.

That matters for lone working specifically. Agency and newly recruited staff typically have less time to build the local knowledge and the tenant relationships that experienced officers rely on to informally manage risk on a visit. The informal safety net that used to do a lot of the heavy lifting in this sector is quietly disappearing at the same time as the workload is going up.

Then there's the training gap. Forty-five percent of the existing workforce say they lack the training their job actually needs, and almost one in five have gone more than three years without any health and safety training at all.

Put the pieces together and the direction of travel is clear: rising caseloads, rising complexity, a stretched and increasingly inexperienced frontline. And the workforce knows it. Per UNISON's own findings, nearly two-thirds of current staff are already job-hunting, with more than half considering leaving the sector altogether. Without a change in how incidents are recorded and followed up, this is a cycle that reinforces itself. Experienced officers leave, the people replacing them carry less local knowledge, the risk on each visit goes up, and the absence of a proper incident record means nobody can see it happening.

## What this means for your duty of care

Here's the financial dimension, and it's not abstract.

The Worker Protection Act 2023's proactive duty to prevent third-party harassment, tightening further under the Employment Rights Act 2025, carries a real cost: a 25% tribunal compensation uplift where an employer failed to take reasonable steps. That uplift sits on top of average harassment and discrimination awards that currently sit at £53,403, uncapped, with the highest recent award reaching £995,000.

To be clear about what this is and isn't: none of this means any individual housing provider is currently facing a claim. What it means is that UNISON's own data shows the exact behaviour pattern, no support and no prevention, that this legal framework is specifically designed to catch out. A provider sitting on half of its incidents going unrecorded and unfollowed-up is sitting on the facts a tribunal would eventually ask for.

A short, honest self-check for any housing employer reading this:

1. Can you list the violent incidents your team reported in the last 12 months, with dates and locations?
2. For each one, can you show what follow-up happened and what was changed to prevent a repeat?
3. Can you spot a repeat address, or a repeat individual, across your team's incidents rather than only within one officer's memory?

If the honest answer to any of those is "not really", that's the gap UNISON is describing. It's also the gap the law is about to ask you to prove you've closed.

## How The Sentry helps

The specific gap UNISON's survey exposes, half of employers taking no steps after a violent incident, is fundamentally a records and follow-up problem as much as a prevention one. You can't prove steps were taken if nobody recorded them.

The Sentry's one-touch panic alarms, silent or loud, both recording video throughout, capture automatic evidence the moment a visit turns confrontational. That creates an objective record of what actually happened rather than relying on memory weeks later. One detail worth being precise about: the silent alarm also records audio. The loud alarm doesn't, because a phone can't sound a siren and record clean audio at the same time. That's a hardware constraint, not a marketing choice, and it's worth knowing before you specify which mode your team uses on which kind of visit.

The check-in timer, with configurable escalation, flags a missed check-in straight away. That triggers a manager alert during the visit itself, rather than the officer's absence only being noticed once they're overdue back at the office, or not noticed at all. On a patch of 1,000-plus homes, that timing difference is the actual safety benefit.

The in-app incident reporting tool is what closes the follow-up gap specifically. It captures written notes, typed or dictated straight into the note via the phone's own microphone, alongside exact location, time and date, and photos, all logged from the same visit. That gives a manager an actual record to act on rather than a verbal account weeks later. It also lets the organisation spot a pattern, a repeat address or a repeat individual, across the whole team rather than only within one officer's memory.

That's what turns "no steps were taken" into having the evidence of the steps that were actually taken, and being able to prove it. Which is, in the end, what the duty of care actually asks for.

> If half of your team's incidents currently go unrecorded and unfollowed-up, it's worth seeing what a structured incident-reporting and escalation process actually looks like. [Book a free demo](/book-demo).

## Key stats at a glance

- **72%** of housing workers experienced violence at work in the past year (UNISON Housing Worker Survey 2024-25, published October 2025, n=1,100+).
- **40%** of those workers weren't adequately supported afterwards; **50%** said their employer took no preventative action.
- **77%** describe the work as stressful; a quarter have taken time off due to stress.
- **57%** are asked to take on duties outside their remit.
- **45%** lack the training their job needs; almost **1 in 5** have gone 3+ years without health and safety training.
- Over **half** of employers are struggling to recruit and are turning to agency staff; nearly **two-thirds** of current staff are already job-hunting.

## FAQ

**What percentage of housing workers have experienced violence at work?**
UNISON's Housing Worker Survey 2024-25, based on over 1,100 responses and published in October 2025, found that 72% of respondents had experienced violence at work in the past year. It is the most current and largest UK survey of its kind.

**What happens to housing workers after a violent incident at work?**
UNISON's survey found that 40% of those who experienced violence said they weren't adequately supported afterwards, and half said their employer took no steps to prevent a repeat incident. The response gap, not just the incident rate, is where employer duty-of-care exposure sits.

**Why is violence against housing staff increasing?**
UNISON points to rising caseload complexity. Nearly a third of respondents manage patches of over 1,000 homes, and more than three-quarters report supporting a growing number of high-need tenants, often without matching training. UNISON describes staff as increasingly taking on work more suited to trained social or support workers.

**Do housing associations have a legal duty to protect lone workers from violence?**
Yes. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers to assess and manage risks to lone workers. The Worker Protection Act 2023 adds a proactive duty to take reasonable steps against third-party harassment, including from tenants, tightening to "all reasonable steps" under the Employment Rights Act 2025 from October 2026.

**How can housing associations respond to the findings of the UNISON 2024-25 survey?**
The survey itself points to the gaps to close first: consistent post-incident support, proactive training, and a documented lone-working and incident-reporting process, rather than relying on informal experience from long-serving staff who UNISON's data suggests are increasingly looking to leave the sector.

---

*This article was written by [Stuart Evans](https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartajevans/), co-founder of The Sentry.*

---

## HSE Lone Worker Categories: Cleaners, Security and Engineers

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/hse-lone-worker-categories-cleaners-security-and-engineers
**Published**: 2026-08-10
**Updated**: 2026-08-10
**Category**: Legal Compliance
**Author**: Stuart Evans

## HSE's lone worker duty covers your whole facilities management team, whatever the role and whatever the shift

Facilities management (FM) contracts run on a genuinely mixed workforce: cleaners, security staff, porters and engineers, working days, evenings and nights across the same sites. HSE's guidance treats all of them the same way. Its own overview lists lone workers as people working "as delivery drivers, health workers or engineers" and, in the same breath, "as security staff or cleaners." No distinction by job title, and no distinction by shift or by how busy the building is — a cleaner working alone without a colleague nearby at 11am, with tenants and visitors moving through the building around them, carries exactly the same legal weight as one working alone at 11pm in an empty one, and exactly the same weight as an engineer on a reactive maintenance call.

That matters because most FM lone worker policies we come across default to an engineering mental model — someone in a plant room, someone driving between sites — with cleaning, security and porterage added as an afterthought, and usually only considered at all once the site goes quiet. That's a misreading of what "lone working" means. It isn't about an empty building. A cleaner on a busy floor full of tenants, a security officer at a reception desk with visitors coming and going, and a porter working a different part of a site to the rest of the team are all lone workers if there's no colleague or supervisor immediately on hand to help. Daytime lone working in these roles is just as real, and just as covered by the duty, as anything that happens after hours.

## What HSE actually says about lone working

HSE's core position is straightforward: employers must manage the health and safety risks of lone working before it happens, under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (sections 2 and 3) and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (regulation 3), which requires a suitable and sufficient risk assessment. HSE's practical guidance document, INDG73 ("Protecting lone workers"), sets out what "suitable and sufficient" looks like in practice.

None of this is written with engineers in mind specifically. HSE's own overview page names lone workers as anyone "who work by themselves without close or direct supervision" — and gives cleaners and security staff as examples in the same list as engineers, delivery drivers and health workers. That definition turns on supervision, not occupancy: a worker in a building full of other people is still a lone worker if nobody is immediately available to help them. What changes by role is the shape of the risk, not the existence of the duty.

## Premises-based lone working: cleaners, porters and security

HSE draws a useful practical distinction, even if it isn't a formal legal category: people working alone on a single site versus people travelling between sites. The first group — "premises-based" lone workers — covers a large chunk of a typical FM contract, and it isn't defined by an empty building or a particular shift: a cleaner working a section of an occupied office floor with no colleague nearby, a security officer staffing a reception desk while visitors pass through, a porter on a different part of a busy site to the rest of the team, and — just as validly — anyone doing the same after most people have gone home. What makes each of them a lone worker isn't how many other people are in the building; it's the absence of a colleague close enough to help.

These roles share a common risk shape: if something happens — a fall, a medical episode, a confrontation — nobody is immediately on hand to notice or respond, whether or not the building is busy. Analysis of Crime Survey for England and Wales data ranks protective service occupations — security roles specifically — as the occupational group facing the highest risk of workplace violence of any group measured, which is worth knowing whatever the footfall on your contract's sites.

Night shift patterns do bring one additional legal thread worth flagging alongside the lone-worker duty: the Working Time Regulations 1998 include specific provisions for night workers, including entitlement to a free health assessment. That's a separate duty from lone-worker risk management, relevant specifically to overnight staff, so it's worth tracking alongside — not instead of — the lone-worker risk assessment that applies to premises-based staff at any hour.

## Away-from-base lone working: engineers and maintenance staff

The second group HSE's guidance implicitly covers is people who don't have a fixed base at all — field service engineers, mobile maintenance staff, inspectors moving between client sites through the day. The risk shape here is different again: less about extended isolation in one building, more about travel risk, unfamiliar sites, and — where the work involves plant rooms, risers or other enclosed spaces — the additional statutory framework of the Confined Spaces Regulations 1997.

It's worth being precise here, because this is a place where FM employers can end up with a false sense of security. A lone worker check-in app is not a substitute for the hardware and procedural controls confined space entry actually requires under the 1997 regulations — gas monitoring, fall-arrest equipment where relevant, a standby person, and a rehearsed rescue plan. A check-in timer adds the communication layer: confirmation that someone knows a worker hasn't checked in on schedule and can act on it. That's a genuinely useful safety net for planned and reactive maintenance rounds, building access visits, and non-confined-space engineering work — it isn't, and shouldn't be sold as, a fix for confined space risk on its own.

## The legal duty is the same — the risk assessment shouldn't be

Here's the practical consequence: because HSWA 1974 and MHSWR 1999 apply identically to a cleaner, a security officer and an engineer, an FM employer with a "lone worker policy" that only really describes the engineer's world is carrying a documented gap for everyone else. HSE inspectors look for a risk assessment covering the actual population of lone workers an employer has — not the loudest or most visible group.

This gap concentrates most at smaller FM contractors, where an informal "text me when you're done" arrangement stands in for a documented process across cleaning, porterage and security roles, even where the engineering side is more structured. That informal arrangement is unlikely to hold up as "suitable and sufficient" if it's ever tested — whether by an HSE inspector during an investigation, in a prosecution, or scrutinised as part of an employment tribunal or civil claim.

## What "all reasonable steps" looks like in practice for a mixed FM workforce

Building genuinely mixed provision doesn't mean writing three separate policies. It means one lone worker risk assessment that honestly maps every role in your contract — premises-based and away-from-base — against the specific risk each one carries, and a corresponding set of controls that's proportionate to each.

For a cleaner, porter or security officer working without a colleague nearby, whatever the hour or however busy the building is: a documented start/finish check-in with a clear escalation path if it's missed. For a security officer specifically, the same, plus attention to the violence-risk profile the role carries. For an engineer on a maintenance round: the same check-in principle, with the honest acknowledgement that confined space entry needs additional, task-specific controls beyond it.

The looming Employment Rights Act 2025 "all reasonable steps" duty — anticipated to commence in October 2026 — raises the bar further, and it applies to every role in your contract, not just the ones with the most visible risk.

## How The Sentry helps

The Sentry gives FM employers two complementary mechanisms across a mixed workforce, whatever the shift: a check-in timer for planned lone activity, and a one-touch panic alarm with automatic audio and video capture for the moment something actually goes wrong. Both work the same way whether it's a cleaner on a busy occupied floor, a security officer between patrol points, or an engineer between reactive maintenance jobs.

The panic alarm's recording matters beyond the immediate alert. It creates an objective record of what actually happened, rather than relying on one person's account after the fact — and that cuts both ways. If a lone worker is accused of misconduct following a confrontation, the recording can support their version of events. If a lone worker is genuinely put at risk by someone else's behaviour, the same recording can substantiate that instead. For FM roles with regular public or tenant contact — a security officer challenged at a reception desk, a cleaner confronted by someone on site — that two-way evidential record is often as valuable as the alert itself, for the employer investigating an incident and for the worker whose account might otherwise be their word against another's.

The check-in timer isn't a single fixed mode — employers choose how it's used. It can run as active monitoring, with automatic escalation to a manager or nominated contact if a check-in is missed. Or, for lower-risk premises-based work where continuous monitoring isn't proportionate, it can simply record arrival, departure and duration on site as a time-stamped, geo-located log, without an active escalation trigger attached. Which mode suits which role is a judgement for the employer's own risk assessment, not something The Sentry decides for them.

It's also worth being precise about what escalation actually delivers, whether triggered by a missed check-in or a panic alarm press. Neither requires a colleague to already be standing nearby — the point is that someone finds out quickly and can decide how to respond: calling emergency services, dispatching whoever's genuinely closest, or attending themselves. On a large or unstaffed site, or where the nearest colleague is a manager offsite, that notification speed is the actual safety benefit — not a guarantee that physical help is seconds away. Employers should factor realistic response times into their risk assessment alongside the app, not instead of it.

We're equally direct about where this fits and where it doesn't. For confined space entry, The Sentry supports the communication element of your duty — it does not replace gas monitoring, fall-arrest equipment, a standby person or a rescue plan, all separately required by the Confined Spaces Regulations 1997. For premises-based and maintenance-orientated lone working — which covers most of a typical FM contract — it's a straightforward, software-only way to close the documentation gap HSE's guidance expects you to close.

## Key dates and actions

- **Now**: Review whether your current lone worker risk assessment actually covers every role in your FM contract, not just engineers.
- **Ongoing**: Night shift staff — cleaners, porters, security — should be checked against Working Time Regulations 1998 night-worker provisions alongside lone worker risk controls.
- **October 2026 (anticipated)**: Employment Rights Act 2025's "all reasonable steps" duty is projected to commence — worth having mixed-workforce provision in place well ahead of that date, not scrambling to build it in September.

> If you're not sure whether your current lone worker provision actually covers your whole FM team, [book a free demo](/book-demo) and we'll walk through what a mixed-workforce setup looks like.

## FAQ

**Does HSE lone worker guidance apply to cleaners and security staff, not just engineers?**
Yes. HSE's own guidance explicitly names security staff and cleaners as lone workers alongside engineers and delivery drivers, and the legal duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 applies identically regardless of job title.

**What's the difference between "premises-based" and "away from base" lone working?**
Premises-based lone working covers people working alone on a single site — cleaners, security officers, some maintenance staff — whatever the hour. Away-from-base covers people travelling between sites, such as field engineers and inspectors. The risk profile differs; the legal duty to assess and manage it doesn't.

**Is a night porter or overnight cleaner covered by the Working Time Regulations as well as lone worker law?**
Yes. Night shift patterns can trigger separate duties under the Working Time Regulations 1998, including entitlement to a night-worker health assessment, alongside — not instead of — the lone worker risk assessment duty.

**Do small FM contractors need a formal lone worker policy, or is a verbal arrangement enough?**
HSE guidance expects a documented, suitable and sufficient risk assessment regardless of employer size. An informal verbal arrangement, such as texting a manager when a shift ends, is unlikely to satisfy that standard if it's ever challenged or investigated.

**Which FM role faces the highest violence risk?**
Analysis of Crime Survey for England and Wales data ranks protective service occupations — security roles — as facing the highest risk of workplace violence of any occupational group measured, ahead of health and social care roles. That's worth factoring into risk assessments for any FM contract that includes security patrols.

---

*This article was written by [Stuart Evans](https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartajevans/), co-founder of The Sentry.*

---

## WhatsApp Check-Ins Are Not a Lone Worker Safety System

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/whatsapp-not-a-lone-worker-safety-system
**Published**: 2026-07-31
**Category**: Legal Compliance
**Author**: Rebecca Evans

Think WhatsApp covers your lone worker safety? Think again — and it could cost you at a tribunal.

WhatsApp isn't a defensible safety measure, it's a chat app. Most estate agencies still rely on it to check on lone workers, but it was never built to protect them, and if something goes wrong, it gives you very little evidence that you took the right steps beforehand.

From 30 October 2026, employers are liable for harassment of staff by clients unless they can prove they took "all reasonable steps" to prevent it. "We message the office" won't cut it.

For estate and letting agents, who send people alone to meet strangers in empty properties every day, that changes everything. If an agent is harassed during a viewing and you can't show you took those steps, you're exposed to a tribunal claim.

The clock is already running.

## Key Takeaways

- WhatsApp check-ins do not satisfy HSE guidance (INDG73) on managing lone workers, because they rely entirely on manual communication.
- The Worker Protection Act 2023 allows Employment Tribunals to increase compensation awards by up to 25% where employers failed to take reasonable preventative steps to prevent sexual harassment.
- From 30 October 2026, the Employment Rights Act 2025 raises that bar to "all reasonable steps" and makes employers directly liable for harassment of staff by third parties, such as clients — directly relevant to agents meeting the public alone.
- Industry surveys put the figures at 53% of UK estate agencies with no formal lone worker policy, and just 22% of agents feeling completely safe during property viewings.
- A dedicated lone worker system provides monitoring, escalation, incident reporting and evidence that informal messaging cannot.

## Communication Is Not Monitoring

WhatsApp has become the default for many agencies. Message when you arrive. Message when you finish. Share your location if needed.

It's free, familiar and convenient. But convenience is not compliance.

The real gap is what WhatsApp cannot do. It cannot prevent harassment from happening. It has no emergency prevention tools, no confidential reporting feature, and no way to raise an alarm with one touch.

If a viewing turns threatening, WhatsApp's only option is for the employee to open the app, type a message, and send it. That takes presence of mind and the physical opportunity to type, and it's well documented that neither is reliable in a genuine panic response.

A dedicated system with a one-touch alarm removes that requirement entirely. Help can be summoned with a single action, under stress, without needing to think or type.

WhatsApp allows people to communicate. A lone worker safety system is built to prevent, alert and respond — activating help the instant it's needed rather than depending on the employee's ability to compose a message under duress.

That distinction matters under HSE guidance, which expects employers to monitor lone workers, maintain contact, respond when contact is lost, manage emergencies, and review risk regularly.

## Where the Gaps Show

- **No automatic escalation.** If a negotiator misses a check-in, WhatsApp generates no alert, notifies no supervisor, and starts no emergency procedure. Someone simply has to notice the silence.
- **No structured audit trail.** Following an HSE investigation, insurance claim or tribunal case, employers may need to show what procedures existed and how missed check-ins were handled. Scrolling through months of chat history rarely provides that evidence.
- **No integrated emergency response.** Timed check-ins, panic alarms, location sharing and incident logging are standard in dedicated systems, and simply outside WhatsApp's design remit.

## Why This Matters for Estate Agencies Specifically

Negotiators routinely conduct evening viewings, enter empty properties, and meet unfamiliar members of the public without support nearby. These are all foreseeable risks under a proper risk assessment.

The figures make the case starkly. Only 22% of estate agents feel completely safe during viewings. An estimated 150 lone workers are attacked every day in the UK. And a 2026 industry survey of 2,500 frontline lone workers found 56% had experienced verbal or physical abuse in the past 12 months.

## The Legal Landscape Is Tightening

Since October 2024, the Worker Protection Act 2023 has required employers to take proactive steps to prevent sexual harassment of their staff, with tribunals able to increase compensation by up to 25% where preventative measures were lacking.

From 30 October 2026, the Employment Rights Act 2025 raises that standard to "all reasonable steps." For the first time, employers become liable for harassment of staff by third parties, including customers, clients and members of the public.

This is a distinct legal strand from the general HSE lone-worker duty. But for estate agents meeting strangers alone in vacant properties, the two risks — physical safety and harassment — sit side by side in practice.

A tribunal is unlikely to ask whether staff used WhatsApp. It's more likely to ask:

Was there a documented policy? Were risks formally assessed? Was there an effective monitoring process? What happened when someone failed to check in? Can you evidence that these procedures were followed consistently?

## A Quick Compliance Check

Can your agency confidently answer:

- Do we have a documented lone worker policy, and does every employee know it?
- Have we assessed the risks of viewings, inspections and lone visits?
- Do we know when a check-in is missed, and does escalation happen automatically?
- Can staff discreetly request help if threatened?
- Can employees report concerns confidentially, and are incidents reviewed?
- Could we evidence our arrangements to the HSE, a tribunal, or our insurers?

If any of these are hard to answer, your current arrangements may not be proportionate to the risks your staff face. Compliance programmes typically take six to nine months to implement properly, so the window to act before 30 October 2026 is narrowing.

## How The Sentry Helps

The Sentry replaces manual messaging with a structured system built for lone workers in the property sector: timed check-ins, live GPS location sharing, one-touch panic alarms with automatic audio/video capture, confidential incident reporting, and full compliance documentation.

Technology can't eliminate every risk of lone working. But it can make consistent procedures achievable, ensure a fast response when something goes wrong, and give employers the evidence that reasonable steps were genuinely in place.

[Book a free demo →](/book-demo)      [See pricing →](/pricing)

---

## The Sentry Expands Its Lone Worker Safety App to New Sectors

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/the-sentry-expands-its-lone-worker-safety-app-to-new-sectors
**Published**: 2026-07-30
**Updated**: 2026-07-30
**Category**: Technology & Implementation
**Author**: Stuart Evans

## We're taking The Sentry beyond property, and beyond the UK

This August and September, The Sentry, our UK lone worker safety app, is
growing on three fronts at once. We're opening the app to lone workers in all
sectors with public facing staff, three of those sectors with a pressing need
are domiciliary care, community healthcare and social housing, alongside the
estate agency sector we've served since day one. We're launching a new
check-in timer inside the app, so a lone worker who misses a scheduled
check-in automatically alerts their manager and their team, exactly as a
triggered alarm would. And we're taking The Sentry across the Atlantic, with a
dedicated website and platform for the US and Canada.

I want to explain why now, why these sectors, and what each of these changes
actually means for the people using our app every day and the businesses
whose integrity we protect.

## Why we didn't stay a property-only product

The Sentry started as a personal safety app built for one problem I understood
intimately: estate and letting agents doing solo viewings with strangers, often
in empty properties, often with no one else knowing where they were. That
problem is real, it's well documented, and it's still the core of what we do —
our estate agency customers aren't going anywhere, and the product we built for
them isn't changing, it's ever improving and shall continue to as we learn of
more ways to improve and help our customers to Go Safely™, our trademark that
we hold so dear. (Becky has written before about
[how that personal experience shaped the company](/insights/the-sentry-story-from-personal-alarm-to-property-safety),
if you're curious where this started.)

But the more time we spent talking to safety and compliance leads outside
property, the clearer it became that the underlying problem is far bigger than
one sector. There are somewhere between 8 and 9 million lone workers in the
UK — roughly one in four of the entire workforce. Only around 7.5% of them are
covered by a proper lone worker safety tool. The other 92.5% are relying on
WhatsApp groups, text messages, or nothing at all. And there's a perception gap
sitting underneath all of that: 91% of managers somehow believe they're
protecting their lone workers, but only 49% of workers actually feel safe
doing their job alone. That gap between what employers think they're doing and what their
staff actually experience is, in my view, the single biggest opportunity in UK
lone worker protection right now — and it isn't unique to property.

The UK lone worker safety market itself is growing quickly, from around £75M
this year toward roughly £108M by 2030, and software-only apps like ours are
the fastest-growing part of it, ahead of the hardware-and-monitoring-contract
model that's dominated this category for years. That shift matters, because a
lot of the sectors we're moving into next are exactly the ones where
affordable employee safety technology fits best: employers with large, often
part-time or shift-based lone worker populations, who were never going to fit
a £150-a-year hardware-and-alarm-receiving-centre contract in the first place,
and who've been left with WhatsApp and hope instead. The Sentry fills this
void perfectly, zero hardware for staff, an auditable activity log for the
business to prove they are protecting their staff and an affordable price
tag.

## The three sectors we're launching into first

We chose to launch into domiciliary and home care, community healthcare and
NHS outreach, and social housing, in that order, for a simple reason: these
are the sectors with the largest number of lone workers, the clearest
regulatory duty of care, and — in our research — the least existing coverage
from the established lone worker safety providers.

**Domiciliary and home care** is CQC-regulated,
and care workers routinely visit clients alone, often in situations with a real
risk of aggression. It's also one of the sectors most exposed to the standard
reliance on informal check-in methods that HSE guidance (INDG73) is explicit
does not meet an employer's duty of care — a phone alone is not adequate.

**Community healthcare and NHS outreach**
— district nurses, community psychiatric nurses, health visitors — already
sit under NHS England's own lone worker policy, visiting patients in their
homes, sometimes carrying medication, sometimes walking into situations they
can't fully assess in advance.

**Social housing and housing associations**
employ large numbers of staff doing neighbourhood visits, tenant inspections
and anti-social behaviour casework, under the Regulator of Social Housing's
oversight and the same statutory duty of care that applies to every UK
employer.

Each of these sectors will get its own dedicated page on our site, and its own
run of content addressing the sector-specific risks, regulator expectations
and buying questions that matter to that audience — not a generic, reworded
version of our property content, The Sentry team do not take shortcuts. That
work is already under way, sector by sector, alongside this launch.

The legal backdrop is the same one we've talked to property clients about for
years, just applied more broadly: the Worker Protection Act 2023, live since
October 2024, added a proactive "reasonable steps" duty and a 25% tribunal
uplift for employers who don't meet it. The Employment Rights Act 2025 goes
further, raising that to an "all reasonable steps" standard — commencement is
still anticipated for October 2026, so I'd treat that date as projected rather
than confirmed, but it's the deadline every UK employer with lone workers
should be planning around regardless of sector.

## A new feature built directly from what employers told us they needed

Alongside the sector expansion, we're shipping something we've been building
for a while: a check-in timer inside The Sentry app.

Here's how it works in practice. A lone worker sets, or is assigned, a check-in
interval appropriate to the task — a home visit, a lone site inspection, a
callout. If they check in on time, nothing happens; the app quietly logs it as
part of the compliance record. If a check-in is missed, the app doesn't wait
for the worker to raise the alarm themselves — it automatically notifies their
manager and their nominated team members, the same escalation path that
happens today when someone triggers a panic alarm.

That distinction matters. Most lone worker incidents don't begin with someone
consciously deciding to hit an alarm — they begin with someone becoming
unable to. A missed check-in is often the first, and sometimes the only,
signal anyone gets that something has gone wrong. Building that escalation in
as a default, rather than something a worker has to remember to set up
manually, is one of the most direct ways we can close the gap between what
managers assume is happening and what workers are actually experiencing on the
ground. It's a small technical feature with a fairly large duty-of-care
implication, and it applies identically whichever sector a customer is in —
this isn't a property feature or a care feature, it's core to what a lone
worker safety and business protection app should do for every UK employer.

## Taking The Sentry into the US and Canada

The third piece of this is geographic rather than sectoral. By the end this
September, we're launching a dedicated website for the US and
Canadian markets. Lone working, and the employer duty that comes with it, isn't a
uniquely British problem — the underlying pattern of solo home visits, solo
field service calls, and solo public-facing roles looks broadly similar across
North America, even where the specific regulatory framework is different from
UK health and safety law.

I want to be direct about what this launch is and isn't. It's a US / Canadian
centred website offering the same core experience — panic alarm with
automatic video capture, live GPS, silent distress, the new check-in timer,
and incident reporting — from launch. It is not, at this stage, a claim that
we have the same depth of sector-specific content or regulatory detail for
North America that we've built for the UK over several years — that will
follow the same sector-by-sector approach we're using for our UK expansion,
built out properly rather than rushed to match the UK site on day one. None
of that limits what the app itself can do from day one, though — it's already
entirely usable for many US and Canadian businesses and organisations, from
field-service companies to sports teams managing lone travel and away-day
safety, to name only two.

We're starting with the core product experience live and usable from day one,
and building out the local content, sector pages and region-specific guidance
in the following months, the same discipline we're applying to domiciliary
care, community healthcare and social housing here in the UK. I'd rather say
plainly that the US and Canada site launches with a smaller footprint than our
UK site and grows from there, than imply on day one that four years of UK
content has somehow been replicated overnight for a market we're only just
entering. We relish the challenge ahead.

## What stays the same

None of this changes what already works. Our estate agency customers keep the
exact product and pricing they have today — £39.50 per user, per year, no
hardware, deployed in under an hour. The property sector isn't being
deprioritised; quite the opposite, it is a source of pride for us to protect
agents in the field and it's the proof that this approach works, and it's now
one part of a bigger picture rather than the whole of it.

## What's next

Domiciliary care, community healthcare and social housing content and
dedicated pages go live through August and September. The check-in timer
should ship to all existing app users in the same window, at no extra cost —
this isn't a premium add-on, it's part of the core lone worker protection
every customer already pays for. The US and Canada platform follows by the
end of September. After that,
the next batch of UK sectors — the remaining industries in our top-20
list — follow in subsequent phases, each researched and built with care
rather than launched all at once.

## A few questions people are likely to ask

**Who provides lone worker safety for domiciliary care, community healthcare
and social housing in the UK?** The Sentry is expanding its existing UK lone
worker safety app into these three sectors from August 2026, alongside the
estate agency market it already serves.

**What happens if a lone worker misses a check-in?** The Sentry's new
check-in timer automatically alerts the worker's manager and nominated team
members the moment a scheduled check-in is missed, using the same escalation
path as a triggered panic alarm.

**Does The Sentry work outside the UK?** From September 2026, yes — The Sentry
launches a dedicated website and platform for the US and Canada, with the
same core app features available from day one.

If you lead safety, HR or operations for a UK employer with lone workers,
outside property or otherwise, and want to see what any of this looks like in
practice, [book a demo](/book-demo) — I'm genuinely interested in hearing what
duty of care and lone worker compliance looks like from where you're sitting.

*Stuart Evans is CEO of The Sentry, leading its expansion from the UK property
sector into every UK industry with lone workers.*

---

## UK Lone Worker Protection App: Complete 2026 Compliance Guide

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/uk-lone-worker-protection-app
**Published**: 2026-07-08
**Updated**: 2026-07-08
**Category**: Legal Compliance
**Author**: Rebecca Evans

## A UK lone worker protection app is a practical way to meet an existing legal duty

Workplace violence remains a serious and growing concern for UK employers: the latest Crime Survey for England and Wales recorded **642,000 incidents of workplace violence in 2023/24**, and a large share involved staff working without direct supervision. Employment tribunal claims are also rising sharply — the open caseload stood at **531,000 at the end of Q4 2025/26**, up from 491,000 a year earlier — and the Employment Rights Act 2025 is set to raise the bar on harassment prevention from October 2026.

Against that backdrop, deploying a dedicated lone worker safety app is one of the most effective practical steps an employer can take to discharge its existing duty of care. It is not, however, a standalone legal requirement in its own right — no UK statute names an "app" as mandatory. What the law requires is that employers assess and manage risk, keep in touch with staff working alone, and be able to demonstrate they took reasonable preventive steps. A good app is simply the most efficient way to do all three, and to prove you did.

For property professionals, healthcare workers, facilities managers, social care providers, and any employer whose staff regularly work alone with members of the public, the underlying legal exposure is the same — and the cost of having nothing in place is severe.

---

## What the law actually requires

The statutory framework governing lone workers sits across several pieces of legislation, none of which name specific technology.

**The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974** places a general duty on every employer, under Section 2, to ensure — so far as is reasonably practicable — the health, safety and welfare of employees, including those who work without direct supervision. Under Section 37, where an offence by a company is proven to have been committed with the consent, connivance, or through the neglect of a director or other senior officer, that individual can be prosecuted personally, alongside the company.

**The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999** add the practical layer: employers must carry out a risk assessment for lone working and put in place proportionate control measures.

**HSE guidance document INDG73** (*Protecting lone workers: How to manage the risks of working alone*) is the HSE's operational guidance on how to meet the above duties in practice — it is not itself a source of legal obligation, but a tribunal or HSE inspector will look to it as the benchmark for what "reasonable" looks like. It recommends that employers keep in touch with lone workers, have a system to respond promptly if contact is lost, and give workers a practical means of raising the alarm in an emergency. It doesn't specify a required device or technology, but it's widely accepted that an informal system with no monitoring or escalation falls short of what "reasonable" steps look like.

**The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023** came into force on 26 October 2024. It introduced a positive, proactive duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent the sexual harassment of their employees — this duty is specific to sexual harassment, not harassment in general. Third-party harassment (by clients, customers or members of the public) is not yet subject to a standalone employer liability under current law; that is being introduced separately, from October 2026, by the Employment Rights Act 2025. Where a tribunal upholds a sexual harassment claim and finds the employer breached its preventive duty, it can increase the compensation award by up to **25%**. This uplift applies to the entirety of the harassment compensation awarded, and because discrimination compensation is uncapped, it can represent a substantial sum.

**The Employment Rights Act 2025**, which received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025, raises the bar further from October 2026: the duty moves from "reasonable steps" to "all reasonable steps," and employer liability for third-party harassment is extended to cover all protected characteristics, not just sex. Separately, from April 2026, reporting sexual harassment (that has occurred, is occurring, or is likely to occur) carries protected whistleblowing status. Regulations further defining what "all reasonable steps" means in practice are expected in 2027, so some detail is still to be confirmed. The Equality and Human Rights Commission's 8-step guidance on preventing sexual harassment is the clearest current indicator of what a tribunal or the EHRC will expect to see.

**The Fee for Intervention (FFI)**, charged by the HSE when an inspector identifies a material breach during an inspection, currently runs at **£188 per hour** for the full duration of the investigation — and an informal system such as an unmonitored WhatsApp group is the kind of gap an inspector is likely to flag.

---

## What a good UK lone worker protection app should include

No law prescribes a specific feature list. But based on what HSE guidance, the Worker Protection Act 2023 and the EHRC's 8-step framework actually expect employers to demonstrate, the following features are what a genuinely fit-for-purpose platform needs — mapped to the obligation each one helps you meet.

**One-touch panic alarm widget**
From your phone's open home screen, a single touch on the widget triggers the full suite of safety features automatically, with no need to open the app or remember a sequence of steps. That speed and simplicity matters when every second counts. Supports the "practical means to raise the alarm" expectation in HSE guidance.

**Automatic video and audio capture on alarm trigger**
Activates the phone's camera on an alarm event and transmits footage to a secure server. This is strong supporting evidence if an employer needs to demonstrate it took proactive steps under the Worker Protection Act 2023 and the EHRC's step on monitoring and recording incidents.

**Live GPS location tracking**
Real-time monitoring of field staff during solo sessions, supporting the risk-assessment and control-measure obligations under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

**Encrypted, tamper-proof audit trail**
Every GPS position, check-in, alarm trigger and session event logged in a timestamped format. This is the kind of documentary evidence a tribunal or the EHRC will look for when assessing whether an employer took "reasonable" — and, from October 2026, "all reasonable" — steps.

**Private incident reporting channel**
A confidential in-app route for workers to report harassment or safety concerns outside their direct management line. Supports the EHRC's guidance on accessible reporting routes, and is relevant context given sexual harassment reports gain whistleblowing protection from April 2026.

**Supervisor dashboard**
A real-time web portal giving management oversight of all active lone workers, supporting an employer's non-delegable duty of care under HSWA 1974.

**Compliance documentation pack**
Policy templates and risk assessment frameworks delivered alongside the software, so the technology sits within a proper governance framework rather than standing alone.

> **Is your current lone worker system built to help you demonstrate compliance?** The Sentry provides all of the above for just £39.50 per user per year, with a full compliance documentation pack included. [Book a free demo →](/book-demo)

---

## Who needs a UK lone worker protection app?

Any employer whose staff regularly work without direct supervision faces broadly the same legal exposure, regardless of sector. The Sentry is used across a growing range of industries, including:

- **Estate agencies and letting agencies** — negotiators conducting solo property viewings with unvetted clients, often in the evenings and in unoccupied buildings
- **Property management and facilities management** — inspectors, maintenance operatives, and housing officers attending properties alone
- **Healthcare and social care** — community nurses, support workers, and domiciliary carers visiting patients at home without colleagues
- **Local government and housing associations** — housing officers, community development workers, and enforcement officers conducting field visits
- **Retail and field sales** — lone representatives conducting client meetings, deliveries, or audits in unfamiliar environments
- **Charities and the voluntary sector** — outreach workers, counsellors, and field staff serving vulnerable populations

---

## Why BS8484 hardware isn't the only route to compliance

Some of the UK's longest-established lone worker safety providers, such as Peoplesafe and SoloProtect, are built around dedicated wearable devices and in-house or third-party Alarm Receiving Centres (ARCs), designed to route alarms to a monitoring centre for police or emergency dispatch. Peoplesafe, for example, leases devices to customers for the length of the contract and operates its own BS8484-accredited ARC. That model brings real overheads with it: devices to issue, track and eventually return, and a third-party call centre sitting between your worker and the people who actually know them.

None of the major providers publish pricing or contract terms publicly — Peoplesafe, SoloProtect and others all require a sales call or demo to get a quote. The Sentry takes the opposite approach: pricing is public, fixed, and simple — **£39.50 per user per year**, with no hardware to issue, no ARC overhead, and no call to book before you find out what it costs.

BS8484 is a British Standard that governs lone worker device services connected to police-response ARCs, and it's heavily marketed by hardware- and ARC-based providers. It is not a statutory legal requirement for most SME employers — including those in the property sector, healthcare, retail, or facilities management. The compliance framework these employers actually need to satisfy is the general duty of care under HSWA 1974 and, where relevant, the EHRC's 8-step guidance — both of which The Sentry addresses directly, without the cost or complexity of ARC-connected hardware.

With The Sentry, there's nothing to issue, charge or lease: your team's own smartphones do the job, alarms route straight to the people who know them best, and you know the price before you've even booked a demo.

---

## Why informal check-ins (e.g. WhatsApp) leave gaps

A common substitute for a dedicated app is an informal group chat, and it has real limitations against what HSE guidance and the Worker Protection Act 2023 expect to see:

**No harassment prevention tools for field staff** — a chat thread has no automatic video or audio capture to evidence an incident, and no confidential channel to report harassment away from the immediate management line, both of which matter under the Worker Protection Act 2023.

**No guaranteed response** — there's no monitored, dedicated pathway; someone has to happen to be looking at the right moment.

**No one-touch alarm** — raising the alarm means opening WhatsApp, finding the right chat, and typing a message, rather than a single touch on a dedicated widget from your phone's open home screen that triggers the full safety response automatically. That extra sequence of steps isn't realistic in a genuine emergency.

**No audit trail suitable for a tribunal** — a chat thread isn't built to serve as timestamped, tamper-proof evidence of what happened and when.

An employer relying solely on this kind of informal system would find it harder to evidence "reasonable steps" if a claim or an HSE inspection followed — but it's the absence of a proper system, not the absence of any specific product, that creates the exposure.

---

## The Sentry: a UK lone worker protection app built for how your team actually works

The Sentry was designed to give SMEs the operational infrastructure that legacy platforms built for heavy industry don't prioritise — at a price point that makes it accessible regardless of company size.

At **£39.50 per user per year**, The Sentry includes every feature above, with no hardware to procure, no IT integration required, no Alarm Receiving Centre overhead, and no setup fee. Deployment across a team typically takes a single working day.

Where hardware-based providers route panic alarms to third-party call centres, The Sentry routes directly to your nominated internal contacts — people who know your team and your sites. Colleagues are often geographically close by, and everyone with access can see exactly where an alarm has been triggered on the in-app map, so the nearest and best-placed person can choose to respond and assist. Teams like this are often best placed to help in a real emergency, and they have a genuine, vested interest in each other's safety and wellbeing — something a distant call centre can't replicate. And because it runs on the smartphones your staff already carry, there's no hardware to distribute, charge, or replace.

Every account includes the full compliance documentation pack: policy templates, risk assessment frameworks, and guidance mapped to the EHRC's 8-step framework — the paperwork that helps demonstrate proactive action if it's ever needed.

With the standard tightening from October 2026, employers who haven't yet put a dedicated system in place should start reviewing their options now — and a well-designed platform like The Sentry can be live across your team within a day.

---

**Frequently Asked Questions**

**What is a lone worker protection app and do I need one in the UK?**
A lone worker protection app is software that monitors the safety of employees working without direct supervision. Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, UK employers hold a duty of care to manage risks for isolated staff, and HSE guidance recommends a practical means of raising the alarm and a system to notice if a worker fails to check in. If any of your staff work alone with members of the public, in empty premises, or in remote locations, an app is a practical — though not the only — way to meet that duty.

**What features should a UK lone worker protection app have?**
There's no legally prescribed feature list, but The Sentry is built around the EHRC's 8-step framework for preventing sexual harassment. Its technology — one-touch alarm widget, GPS tracking, encrypted audit trail, and private reporting channel — maps directly to risk assessment (step 3), reporting (step 4), third-party harassment (step 7), and monitoring and evaluation (step 8). The remaining steps — policy (1), staff engagement (2), training (5), and handling a complaint (6) — are HR processes rather than app functions, which is why The Sentry also includes a compliance documentation pack to help employers put those in place.

**How much does a lone worker protection app cost in the UK?**
Pricing varies across the market, with hardware-based, ARC-connected platforms generally costing more due to physical devices and call-centre overheads. The Sentry costs £39.50 per user per year on flexible annual terms, with no hardware requirements and no setup fee.

**Does a lone worker protection app need to be BS8484 certified?**
No. BS8484 is a British Standard for Alarm Receiving Centre operations relating to police response, aimed at severe physical hazards in industrial settings. It is not a statutory requirement for the majority of UK employers, including property agencies, healthcare providers, facilities managers, and retail businesses.

**How quickly can a lone worker protection app be deployed across my team?**
The Sentry can typically be deployed across a full team within a single working day, including staff briefing and supervisor dashboard setup, with the compliance documentation pack available immediately.

**What happens if an incident occurs and we don't have a compliant system in place?**
If an employment tribunal upholds a sexual harassment claim and finds the employer failed to take reasonable steps to prevent it, the tribunal can increase the award by up to 25%, and discrimination compensation is uncapped. Separately, if an HSE inspection identifies a material breach of health and safety law, the Fee for Intervention (currently £188 per hour) applies for the duration of the investigation.

---

*[Rebecca Evans](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-evans-82893b304/) is founder of The Sentry. With 18 years' experience as a letting agent, she brings first-hand knowledge of the property industry and the practical challenges facing property-focused SMEs, including the employment law obligations that affect them.*

---

**Ready to protect your team and your business?**
The Sentry is the UK lone worker protection app built for employers who need to meet their duty of care and prove it — protecting their company against tribunals and compensation claims. GPS tracking, one-touch panic alarm, automatic video capture, encrypted audit trail, private incident reporting, and a full compliance documentation pack — all for £39.50 per user per year.

[Book a free demo →](/book-demo) | [See pricing →](/pricing)

---

## The Sentry Shortlisted at the Digital Education Awards 2025

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/digital-education-awards-2025-shortlist
**Published**: 2026-05-27
**Updated**: 2026-07-12
**Category**: Property Sector Safety
**Author**: Rebecca Evans

## What the Digital Education Awards shortlist means

The [Digital Education Awards](https://www.digitaleducationawards.com/2025-winners) recognise outstanding digital education products across the UK and internationally. The 2025 awards attracted entries from across the EdTech sector — adult & child digital learning products, home learning products, digital language learning products, digital classroom aids and (our category) digital health & wellbeing products.

Being included on the shortlist alongside globally recognised EdTech companies and specialist learning platforms is meaningful recognition for a compliance-focused product built for a single, specific sector. It confirms that the safeguarding component of The Sentry's platform — the mobile emergency protection tools, the 100% private & accessible, in-app reporting channel, the audit trail and activity log monitored by an admin — is substantive enough to stand alongside products built exclusively for the education sector.

## A safety platform with an unexpected safeguarding reach

The Sentry was not built for schools. At its core, it is a personal safety and lone worker platform for the property sector, designed to protect estate and letting agency staff who work alone with members of the public, and to protect employers by providing evidence that they took reasonable steps to prevent harassment from occurring.

But the same features that make The Sentry effective for lone workers — real-time location awareness, a discreet panic alarm, and a private incident and concern reporting channel routed straight to an admin portal — translate directly into a safeguarding tool for schools operating beyond their own gates.

Schools are increasingly responsible for pupil welfare in out-of-school-settings: school trips, work experience placements, sports fixtures, and other activities that take place away from staff supervision on-site. The Sentry's app and web portal allow schools to extend safeguarding into exactly these settings. Students carry the app on their own phone; any activity, incident, or concern they report is routed securely to the school's admin portal, where it sits as a retrievable record if it is ever needed. For safeguarding leads responsible for large groups of students off-site, this gives a practical way of keeping a closer eye on pupil welfare than has previously been possible.

It is this crossover — not any original design intent for education — that the Digital Education Awards shortlist recognises. The Sentry remains built first and foremost for estate and letting agents; its safeguarding capability is a byproduct of strong lone worker technology, not a parallel product line.

## Reporting that meets the moment

One feature translates particularly well into a school setting: the 100% private, 100% accessible reporting channel, available to students through the app on their own phone. This gives schools a reporting route that aligns with current obligations — the [Worker Protection Act 2023](/insights/worker-protection-act-2023)'s proactive duty on sexual harassment, the whistleblowing protections under the [Employment Rights Act 2025](/insights/employment-rights-act-2025), and the EHRC's 8-step guidance on preventing sexual harassment — and it is available to staff as well as students. A private, well-documented channel for raising concerns is exactly what these obligations are asking employers and institutions to put in place.

## Where the comparison to a business compliance tool ends

The Sentry's compliance documentation pack — the policy framework, risk assessment templates, and legislative mapping that accompany a business deployment — is built for employers to demonstrate that they have taken all reasonable steps to protect their staff. It is not, in its current form, designed around a school's safeguarding obligations to pupils, and it isn't the reason for the award recognition.

Where it is relevant is in relation to a school's own staff: a school that used the compliance pack for its employees, in the same way an estate agency would, could use it to evidence compliance with the same employer obligations under the [Worker Protection Act 2023](/insights/worker-protection-act-2023) and [Employment Rights Act 2025](/insights/employment-rights-act-2025).

Either way, we're proud that the safeguarding capability at the heart of The Sentry has been recognised in this way, and grateful to the Digital Education Awards for seeing the value it brings to schools and students beyond the sector we originally built it for.

---

*[Rebecca Evans](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-evans-82893b304/) is founder of The Sentry, specialising in UK employment law obligations and lone worker safety for the property sector.*

---

## The Sentry: From Personal Alarm to Property Safety Platform

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/the-sentry-story-from-personal-alarm-to-property-safety
**Published**: 2026-05-27
**Updated**: 2026-07-13
**Category**: Property Sector Safety
**Author**: Stuart Evans

## Where it started: hardware-led personal safety

The Sentry launched in the UK in 2021, but not in the form it takes today. The original product was a piece of hardware that fitted into a smartphone's charging port, paired with a companion app. The hardware was the product; the app was there to drive it.

The idea was straightforward: removing the device from the charging port, as would happen if someone grabbed the phone, or the phone was stolen, triggered the safety features built into the app. It doubled as phone-theft prevention and a personal safety trigger in one small piece of kit.

At that stage The Sentry was a B2C product, aimed squarely at end users: commuters, students, anyone who wanted an extra layer of protection built into the device they already carried.

## The discovery that changed the direction

As the product developed, a different and more pressing need became clear: personal safety and the prevention of harassment for staff at work was a bigger problem than the consumer market The Sentry had originally been built for.

That realisation drove the pivot from B2C to B2B — from a product for individuals to a platform for employers whose staff work face-to-face with the public and, as a result, carry a higher risk of harassment from third parties.

Removing the hardware from the equation didn't remove the safety features. It simply meant those features, now the core of the app, needed a new home and a new focus.

## Why property: 18 years as a letting agent

The property sector wasn't a market The Sentry stumbled into. Stuart & Rebecca Evans, founders of The Sentry, spent 18 years running their own letting agency before building the platform, and saw first-hand the daily fear that many staff in the industry carry, and the almost complete absence of safety tools or equipment to address it.

Employers already have a duty to take reasonable steps to protect staff from third-party harassment under the EHRC's 8-step guidance. In practice, many don't. Where a process exists at all, it typically asks a member of staff being harassed on a viewing to phone the office and use a safe word, or to unlock their phone and start typing a message or dialling a number.

From direct experience, Stuart & Rebecca knew that these processes fall apart under pressure. When someone is panicked, tasks that sound simple — remembering a phrase, unlocking a phone, composing a message — become too complex to execute. The most anyone can realistically manage in that moment is pressing a button.

That single insight shaped The Sentry as it exists today: a standalone app, built specifically for staff and businesses in the property industry, designed around what a person can actually do when they're frightened, not what a policy document assumes they can do.

## MWC Barcelona: proving the technology had commercial depth

Before the platform's full pivot to the property sector, The Sentry exhibited at 4YFN (4 Years From Now) at MWC25 Barcelona — the startup summit that runs alongside Mobile World Congress, Europe's largest mobile technology conference. The MWC exhibitor listing referenced the platform's focus on mobile phone safety, with thesentry.co.uk listed as the developer contact.

![Stuart Evans at MWC Barcelona](/images/team/stewart-expo.jpg)

![Becky Evans at MWC Barcelona](/images/team/beccy-expo.jpg)

4YFN is one of the largest startup gatherings in Europe, focused on mobile-first technology businesses. Being selected to exhibit as a UK company at MWC 2025 placed The Sentry alongside some of the most ambitious mobile technology startups globally, and confirmed that the underlying technology had commercial depth well beyond a single consumer device.

## The pivot: purpose-built for UK property

UK estate agents and lettings negotiators routinely conduct solo viewings in unoccupied properties with clients they have never met. The combination of isolation, physical vulnerability and inadequate emergency tools and processes — particularly for female negotiators — created exactly the environment where a purpose-built professional safety platform was needed.

The pivot wasn't a departure from the original mission of protecting people. It was a sharpening of it, built around what the founder had lived through in the industry.

This meant:

- **Check-in functions** — daily, timed check-ins calibrated by each team of staff to suit their needs
- **Employer-facing compliance tools** — an admin dashboard giving agencies real-time visibility of their field team
- **A genuine one-button response** — no safe words, no typing, no multi-step process. Just a button a person can press under real stress.
- **Legislative alignment** — compliance documentation and app features that are mapped to the EHRC 8-step guidance and to incoming employment law reforms.
- **One-hour deployment** — the property sector is dominated by SME agencies without dedicated IT teams. The platform had to be operational in under an hour, with zero hardware.

## Why the law is catching up

Employers should already be taking reasonable steps to prevent third-party harassment of staff under the EHRC 8-step guidance. Many aren't. This year, the government is updating employment law with reforms that make employers directly liable for third-party harassment of staff — a change that puts a legal weight behind an obligation that should already have been front of mind.

That reform sharpens the issue for property businesses specifically. The Sentry doesn't just give staff a way to raise the alarm in an emergency; it gives businesses a documented, auditable system they can point to as evidence that they took all reasonable steps to protect their people. In an industry where a single unaccompanied viewing can turn into an incident, that evidence matters, both for the person involved, and for the business defending itself against a compensation claim if something does go wrong.

## What the platform provides today

The current platform still carries the DNA of the original idea — fast, mobile-first, no hardware required — but it has been rebuilt, iteration by iteration, around the realities of property work and the compliance requirements that come with it:

- **One-touch panic alarm with automatic video capture** — creates tamper-proof incident evidence, not just an audible alert.
- **Real-time GPS monitoring via admin dashboard** — gives employers verifiable oversight of field staff during solo viewings.
- **Private, accessible incident reporting channel** — supports Step 4 of the EHRC 8-step guidance and new laws around sexual harassment being covered under the whistleblowing act.
- **Compliance documentation pack** — policy templates and risk assessment frameworks included at no additional cost.
- **Full encrypted audit trail** — usable as evidence should an incident proceed to an employment tribunal or compensation claim.

## A self-funded, independent business by design

The Sentry has been self-funded since the business was founded in 2019, and that independence is a deliberate choice, not a limitation. Venture-backed safety platforms face pressure to expand pricing, add hardware requirements, and extend contract lock-ins to satisfy investor return timelines. The Sentry answers to its users instead — accessible pricing, no lock-in, built by someone who has done the job the platform is designed to protect.

Necessity was the mother of invention here. The need was for more proactive, serious staff protection — one that also protects the business itself from litigation — and that's what The Sentry set out to build.

---

## ERA 2025 Harassment Law Changes: What Estate Agents Must Do Now

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/era-2025-harassment-law-changes-estate-agents
**Published**: 2026-05-20
**Updated**: 2026-05-20
**Category**: Legal Compliance
**Author**: Rebecca Evans

> This article expands on Rebecca Evans' piece published in **The Negotiator** in August 2025. [Read the original article in The Negotiator →](https://thenegotiator.co.uk/supplier-advice/changes-to-employment-law-on-harassment-what-you-need-to-do-now/)

Between October 2025 and April 2026, four major updates to UK employment law permanently changed the obligations on every employer in the country. For estate and letting agents — whose staff spend much of their working day alone with members of the public in unfamiliar properties — the implications are acute and the compliance window is closing.

This is a comprehensive breakdown of each change, what it requires in practice, and the specific steps your agency should take before the October 2026 deadline.

## The four changes in full

### 1. The 'all reasonable steps' duty

The Worker Protection Act 2023 placed a proactive duty on employers to take 'reasonable steps' to prevent sexual harassment. The Employment Rights Act 2025 escalates that standard to **'all reasonable steps'** — a materially higher bar that courts and tribunals will assess strictly.

The difference is not semantic. 'Reasonable steps' allowed employers to point to a policy document and basic training as evidence of compliance. 'All reasonable steps' requires employers to demonstrate:

- A documented risk assessment specifically addressing harassment scenarios in their working environment
- Active preventative technology — not a phone number to call in a situation where calling a phone number is not practical
- A confidential, encrypted, and independently accessible reporting channel
- Regular review cycles with evidence of ongoing compliance effort

The October 2026 implementation date is five months away. The compliance programme required to meet this standard takes longer than five months to properly embed. **The time to act is now.**

### 2. Third-party harassment liability

This is the change that most directly affects the property sector.

From October 2026, employers become liable for harassment carried out by clients, customers, contractors, or members of the public — and not only sexual harassment. Any harassment linked to a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 (race, religion, disability, age, sex, and others) can result in employer liability if adequate prevention steps cannot be evidenced.

For estate and letting agents, this liability is substantial. Consider the routine working day of a lettings negotiator:

- Morning: accompanied viewing with a prospective tenant who has not been vetted
- Afternoon: unaccompanied inspection at a property where the existing tenant is present
- Evening: open day where multiple unknown members of the public attend simultaneously

In each of these scenarios, the employer has a legal duty to assess the nature and frequency of third-party contact, implement preventative safety systems, and be able to evidence that assessment to a tribunal if challenged.

A harassment tribunal claim resulting from a client interaction during a property viewing carries unlimited compensation potential, plus a 25% uplift under WPA 2023 if the employer cannot demonstrate compliance. For the average estate agency, a single successful claim represents an existential financial event.

### 3. Protected whistleblowing for harassment disclosures

From **April 2026** — a date that is already live — sexual harassment disclosures made by employees are explicitly classified as protected whistleblowing disclosures under ERA 2025.

This means:

- **Day-one protection applies.** An employee does not need to have completed a qualifying period to be protected from retaliation. From their first day, if they report sexual harassment, they are protected.
- **Retaliation is automatically unlawful.** A dismissal, demotion, exclusion from opportunities, or any other detrimental treatment following a harassment disclosure is grounds for an immediate and uncapped retaliation claim.
- **The reporting channel must be structurally private.** A suggestion box, a line manager conversation, a general HR email, or any reporting mechanism that makes the reporter visible to management — especially when the report concerns a manager — does not satisfy the duty.

The critical requirement is that employees can report confidentially, from anywhere, at any time, on their own device, without the report being routed through anyone they are reporting.

### 4. NDAs can no longer silence victims

Any confidentiality clause — in a contract of employment, settlement agreement, or non-disclosure agreement — that prevents a worker from speaking out about harassment or discrimination is void. This applies to both employees and witnesses.

Agencies should review existing contracts and settlement agreements now. Any clause that could be interpreted as preventing a staff member from disclosing harassment is legally unenforceable, and attempting to enforce it creates further liability.

## Why property viewings are specifically high-risk

The property sector sits in an unusual position within UK employment law because it combines three risk factors that rarely coexist in other industries:

**Physical isolation.** A negotiator conducting a viewing is alone — often in a property with no other occupants, no colleagues, and no reliable communication infrastructure. Every unaccompanied viewing meets the HSE INDG73 definition of lone working.

**Unvetted third-party contact.** Unlike, for example, a retail environment where customers are broadly anonymous members of the public in a supervised space, property viewings involve extended one-to-one contact with individuals who have been given a specific address and a specific time. The power dynamic is asymmetric and the environment is private.

**Emotional pressure.** Property transactions frequently involve financial stress, relationship breakdown, and high-stakes decision-making. These are conditions that escalate the potential for confrontational or harassing behaviour.

The EHRC Guidance on the WPA 2023 proactive duty specifically identifies environments with these three characteristics as requiring heightened assessment and more rigorous preventative measures.

## What a compliant programme looks like

The EHRC and ERA 2025 regulations do not specify a single compliant technology solution. What they require is a programme that, taken together, satisfies the 'all reasonable steps' test. Based on current regulatory guidance, that programme should include:

| Compliance component | What it requires | What does not qualify |
|---|---|---|
| Risk assessment | Documented, sector-specific, reviewed annually | Generic HR policy template |
| Emergency alerting | Dedicated safety technology with monitored alarm | Mobile phone call or WhatsApp |
| Incident reporting | Encrypted, confidential, accessible outside the workplace | HR email or suggestion box |
| Policy documentation | EHRC-aligned, current, distributed | Filed handbook policy |
| Staff training | Structured, evidenced, tool-specific | One-off induction mention |
| Audit trail | Logged, tamper-proof, employer-accessible | Manual register or spreadsheet |

Satisfying all six components is what 'all reasonable steps' means in practice. Satisfying three or four is not compliance — it is a partial defence at best.

## The financial exposure in full

The financial risk of non-compliance is not theoretical. The following figures reflect current tribunal data and ERA 2025 uplift provisions:

| Risk | Financial impact |
|---|---|
| Average harassment tribunal award | £53,403 (uncapped) |
| WPA 2023 uplift for non-compliance | +25% bringing the total to ~£66,753 |
| ERA 2025 whistleblowing retaliation claim | Separate, additional uncapped award |
| HSE Fee for Intervention | £188/hour during investigation |
| Legal defence costs | Typically £15,000–£50,000 |

For a 10-person agency, The Sentry costs **£395 per year**. The maths does not require a risk management specialist to interpret.

## The compliance timeline for October 2026

Many agencies are aware of the October 2026 deadline but have not fully accounted for how long a compliant programme takes to establish. Based on experience working with estate and letting agencies across the UK, the realistic timeline is:

- **Policy drafting and legal review:** 2–4 weeks
- **Technology procurement and deployment:** 1–2 weeks (The Sentry deploys in under one hour)
- **Staff communication and training:** 4–6 weeks to reach full team
- **Embedded compliance culture:** 3–6 months of consistent use to generate the audit trail evidence required

An agency that begins implementing in September 2026 will arrive at the October 2026 deadline with one month of compliance evidence. A tribunal will not find that persuasive. An agency that begins now will arrive with six months of documented, operational compliance — a materially stronger defence.

## How The Sentry addresses every ERA 2025 obligation

The Sentry was updated following the April 2026 ERA 2025 provisions and satisfies each component of the 'all reasonable steps' standard:

**Private incident reporting channel** — Encrypted, mobile-first, and structurally isolated from the management hierarchy of the person being reported. Satisfies the whistleblowing-compliant disclosure requirement from day one.

**Live safety session with monitored alarm** — Dedicated safety technology that provides instantaneous, monitored alerting. Not a standard phone call. Not a WhatsApp message. A purpose-built system that functions in the high-pressure, time-critical scenarios that property viewings create.

**Tamper-proof audit trail** — Every session is automatically logged, providing the legally defensible evidence base that demonstrates 'all reasonable steps' on every working day.

**Compliance documentation pack** — Updated EHRC-aligned policy templates, staff communication materials, and risk assessment frameworks, all calibrated for the property sector and updated to reflect ERA 2025 obligations.

**One-hour deployment** — There is no operational or logistical excuse for delayed compliance. The Sentry can be deployed across an entire estate agency on the same day an account is opened.

---

*[Rebecca Evans](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-evans-82893b304/) is COO and Co-Founder of The Sentry, a mobile-based safety and reporting platform that protects lone workers and helps employers evidence compliance with UK employment law. Rebecca is an ex-letting agent of 18 years and writes regularly on employment law obligations for the property sector. Her piece on these changes was [published in The Negotiator](https://thenegotiator.co.uk/supplier-advice/changes-to-employment-law-on-harassment-what-you-need-to-do-now/) in August 2025.*

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## Lone Worker Safety Apps: A Buyers Guide for UK Estate Agents

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/lone-worker-app-buyers-guide
**Published**: 2026-05-12
**Updated**: 2026-07-21
**Category**: Technology & Implementation
**Author**: The Sentry Compliance Team

## The lone worker app market in 2026

The UK lone worker safety software market has consolidated significantly since 2022. Several major platforms have been acquired by private equity groups, and pricing models have become more complex — often burying the true cost behind setup fees, hardware requirements, and multi-year contract obligations.

For estate agencies, letting agencies, and property management firms, this landscape creates a specific procurement challenge: you need enterprise-grade compliance capability without enterprise-level complexity or cost.

This buyers guide addresses the practical questions that property sector buyers ask most frequently.

## Does BS8484 certification matter for estate agents?

BS8484 is a British Standard for the provision of lone worker device services, specifically relating to police response via Alarm Receiving Centres (ARCs). It is not a statutory legal requirement for any sector, including property. It is a code of practice, not a specification employers are legally obliged to procure against.

Estate agencies can achieve full legal compliance under the HSE's INDG73 guidance and the Worker Protection Act 2023 using app-based solutions that don't rely on BS8484 hardware or a police-response ARC. BS8484 is most relevant to higher-risk operating environments — utilities, security, oil and gas — where a confirmed police response is the primary safety mechanism. For most property businesses, an internally escalated alarm reaching a nominated contact within seconds is faster and more practical than routing through a third-party ARC.

For property professionals, the more directly relevant framework is the EHRC's 8-step guidance on preventing sexual harassment, which asks employers to show:

- Active risk assessment and mitigation
- A confidential reporting channel
- Evidence of proactive employer action

None of these requirements are tied to BS8484 certification. An app-based platform like The Sentry is built to satisfy all three directly.

## What features does the law actually expect?

The Worker Protection Act 2023 has been in force since 26 October 2024, placing a proactive duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their staff — including, in higher-risk scenarios, harassment by third parties such as clients or viewers. This isn't a future deadline; it's a live legal duty today.

A note on timing, so nothing here overstates the position: the government has signalled, via the Employment Rights Act 2025, an intention to strengthen this further — moving from "reasonable steps" to "all reasonable steps" and reintroducing express third-party harassment liability, with commencement anticipated around October 2026. That date isn't yet confirmed in force, so it should be treated as a direction of travel rather than a hard deadline. The sensible commercial message is: the duty already applies now, and it is only going to get stricter — so there's no reason to wait for a future date to act.

A lone worker safety app that supports this duty should, at minimum, provide:

**Live location sharing** — enabling remote monitoring of field staff position

**One-touch panic alarm** — allowing instantaneous emergency escalation

**Automatic audio or video recording on alarm trigger** — creating tamper-proof incident evidence

**Encrypted audit trail** — providing a defensible record of session activity that can support (though not itself guarantee) a "reasonable steps" defence

**Secure incident reporting** — supporting EHRC Step 4 and the reporting expectations under the Worker Protection Act 2023

Platforms offering only basic GPS tracking, without alarm escalation and a documented reporting channel, give an employer a weaker evidential position if a "reasonable steps" defence is ever tested.

## How to compare true costs

The headline price per user of most lone worker apps masks significant additional costs. When evaluating any platform — including The Sentry — request the following in writing from the provider:

| Cost category | What to ask |
| --- | --- |
| Setup fee | Is there a one-time activation or implementation charge? |
| Hardware | Does the platform require physical devices to be purchased? |
| Contract length | Is there a minimum term? What are the exit provisions? |
| Support costs | Is UK-based support included in the licence, or charged separately? |
| Add-on fees | Are compliance features, reporting tools, or integrations sold as additional modules? |

The total cost of ownership can vary significantly. A platform with a lower headline price but a long minimum term, a setup fee, and required hardware can end up costing considerably more than the advertised per-user rate over the life of the contract.

## Platform comparison

The figures below are drawn from publicly listed pricing pages and contract terms as of the date this guide was last updated. Provider pricing, contract structures, and hardware requirements change frequently — always confirm current terms directly with each provider before making a decision, and treat this table as a starting point for your own due diligence rather than a substitute for it.

| Provider | Approx. cost/user/year | Contract | Hardware |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| The Sentry | £39.50 | Annual | None |
| StaySafe | £114+ | Check current terms — long minimum terms have historically applied | Optional |
| Vatix | £71+ | Annual | Optional |
| Ok Alone | £84+ | Annual | None |
| Peoplesafe | Custom | Check current terms | Often required |
| SoloProtect | Custom | Check current terms | Often required |

## Questions to ask before you sign

Before committing to any lone worker safety platform, ask these five questions:

### 1. Can we deploy without involving our IT department?

Most SME estate agencies don't have dedicated IT resource. A platform that requires network integration, device management software, or technical configuration is a practical barrier to deployment.

### 2. What happens to our data if we cancel?

Ensure the contract includes clear provisions for data export and deletion on termination. Audit trail data may need to be retained for several years after an incident, so check retention terms carefully rather than assuming they match your preference.

### 3. How is the panic alarm monitored?

Some platforms route alarms through third-party Alarm Receiving Centres (ARCs), which adds cost and can add latency. Others route directly to nominated contacts within your organisation. For most SME estate agencies conducting solo viewings, fast internal escalation to a manager or office is both quicker and more proportionate than a police-response pathway designed for higher-risk sectors.

### 4. What documentation is included?

A platform that delivers only the app and portal — without policy templates, risk assessment frameworks, and compliance mapping — leaves significant additional work for your HR team. Ask for a full compliance documentation pack as standard, not as a paid extra.

### 5. How long until we're actually protected?

The answer should be measured in hours, not weeks. A platform requiring an extended implementation timeline delays the point at which your "reasonable steps" duty is being actively supported by evidence — a duty that already applies now, not from some future date.

## The fastest path to compliance

Because the Worker Protection Act 2023 duty is already in force, the priority for estate agencies isn't waiting for a deadline — it's closing the gap between the duty that already exists and what's actually in place today. That means speed of deployment combined with genuine compliance coverage, not just GPS tracking with a safety label attached.

The Sentry was built specifically for this: a standalone app with no hardware and no IT integration, designed around what a person can realistically do when they're frightened — pressing a single button — rather than what a policy document assumes they can do. It can typically be deployed within an hour of sign-up, with a compliance documentation pack included at no additional cost, giving HR teams the policy framework, risk assessment templates, and EHRC alignment mapping needed to demonstrate proactive employer action if a claim is ever raised.

---

*This buyers guide is updated periodically to reflect changes in UK compliance legislation and market pricing. Last updated July 2026.*

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## The Employment Rights Act 2025: What It Means for Your Agency

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/employment-rights-act-2025
**Published**: 2026-05-10
**Updated**: 2026-07-21
**Category**: Legal Compliance
**Author**: Rebecca Evans

## The Employment Rights Act 2025 and what it means for your agency

The Employment Rights Act 2025 (ERA 2025) introduces two major changes to UK employment law that directly affect any employer with staff working alone in the field. Estate agencies, letting agencies, and property management firms — where solo viewings with unvetted members of the public are routine — are squarely in scope.

The two critical provisions are:

**6 April 2026 (now in force):** Sexual harassment disclosures are explicitly classified as protected "qualifying disclosures" under whistleblowing law. Workers who report sexual harassment are protected from detriment and, where dismissal follows, that dismissal will generally be treated as automatically unfair — with no minimum service requirement.

**30 October 2026 (projected):** The harassment prevention standard escalates from "reasonable steps" to "all reasonable steps," and third-party harassment liability is reinstated. Employers become liable for harassment of their staff by clients, customers, or other third parties, unless they can show they took all reasonable steps to prevent it.

## Why property viewings create specific ERA 2025 exposure

Property viewings meet the definition of lone working under HSE INDG73 guidance: any task performed out of sight or hearing of colleagues qualifies. Every unaccompanied viewing conducted by a negotiator, lettings agent, or property manager falls within that definition.

Industry-wide research gives a sense of scale: SoloProtect's 2026 Lone Worker Survey, based on 2,500 UK and Ireland frontline workers, found that 56% had experienced verbal or physical abuse in the past 12 months, and 50% had avoided a task or location because they felt unsafe. Those figures span multiple sectors rather than property specifically, but they illustrate the pattern of risk that lone working — including solo viewings — creates.

Separately, section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 already allows an employee to refuse a task where they reasonably believe it presents serious and imminent danger. That existing right sits alongside, and is reinforced by, the new October 2026 duty.

## What "all reasonable steps" is likely to require

The "all reasonable steps" standard under ERA 2025 is a materially higher bar than the current "reasonable steps" duty under the Worker Protection Act 2023. While there's no fixed legal checklist, guidance from employment law commentators consistently points to the same practical areas:

**Risk assessment** — has the employer conducted and documented a specific risk assessment for lone working scenarios?

**Technology deployment** — has the employer given staff a practical way to raise an alarm instantly?

**Reporting infrastructure** — does the employer maintain a confidential channel for harassment disclosures?

**Policy documentation** — are policies current, distributed, and aligned with EHRC guidance?

**Staff training** — have employees been trained on safety systems and their reporting rights?

Satisfying this standard is likely to require a documented, operational programme — not a policy filed away and forgotten.

## Protected whistleblowing and the April 2026 provisions

From 6 April 2026, a disclosure about sexual harassment can qualify as a protected disclosure under whistleblowing law (amending section 43B of the Employment Rights Act 1996). In practice, this means:

- Protection applies from day one of employment, with no minimum service requirement
- Detriment for reporting harassment is unlawful, and resulting dismissal will generally be treated as automatically unfair
- Employers who cannot show a workable, confidential way for staff to raise concerns are in a weaker position if a claim is brought

The law doesn't prescribe a specific technology or technical standard for how that reporting channel must work. But a general suggestion box, an informal word with a line manager, or a shared HR inbox is unlikely to give staff genuine confidence to report — particularly where the person they'd be reporting is senior to them. A confidential, structurally separate reporting channel is best practice for meeting the spirit of the duty, even though it isn't spelled out as a specific legal requirement.

## The financial exposure

The changes create several distinct — and in some cases overlapping — sources of financial risk that estate agency owners should be aware of:

| Risk factor | Financial impact |
| --- | --- |
| Average tribunal award, sex discrimination & harassment claims (2023/24 reporting period) | £53,403 (uncapped for discrimination claims) |
| WPA 2023 / ERA 2025 uplift for non-compliance | Up to +25% on the award |
| ERA 2025 whistleblowing detriment or automatically unfair dismissal claim | Separate, uncapped award |
| HSE Fee for Intervention (where a lone-working risk assessment breach is found under health & safety law) | £188/hour from the point a material breach is identified |
| Legal defence costs | Commonly cited in the £15,000–£50,000 range for contested claims |

Two things worth being precise about here: the HSE fee applies to health & safety enforcement (e.g. a failure to risk-assess lone working under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999) via HSE inspectors — it's a separate enforcement route from an employment tribunal claim under WPA 2023 or ERA 2025, which is handled by the EHRC and tribunals, not HSE. They can both apply to the same underlying failure, but they aren't the same mechanism, so they shouldn't be presented as a single combined penalty.

For a 10-person agency, The Sentry costs £395 per year — a fraction of the potential exposure from a single successful claim, before legal costs are even factored in.

## Why property viewings are specifically classified as lone working

A property viewing meets the criteria HSE INDG73 uses to define lone working:

- The worker is physically separate from colleagues and management
- The worker cannot receive immediate assistance in an emergency
- The worker is in contact with members of the public who haven't been vetted

This applies to every unaccompanied viewing your team conducts — regardless of whether the property is occupied or vacant, urban or rural, daytime or evening.

## Building toward compliance: a realistic timeline

Full ERA 2025 compliance isn't something that happens overnight. As a rough guide:

**Policy drafting and legal review:** 2–4 weeks

**Technology procurement and testing:** 2–4 weeks

**Staff training and communication:** 4–6 weeks

**Embedding a working safety culture:** 3–6 months, ongoing

**Compliance documentation and audit trail:** ongoing from deployment

Agencies that start now have a realistic path to showing active, evidenced compliance well ahead of the October 2026 provisions. Agencies that leave it late risk entering that period with little evidence of proactive action — which is precisely the gap that can trigger a compensation uplift.

## How The Sentry supports ERA 2025 compliance

The Sentry was reviewed against the ERA 2025 provisions to help clients stay ahead of both the April and October 2026 changes:

**Private incident reporting channel** — gives staff a confidential, structurally separate way to report concerns, supporting the spirit of the whistleblowing protections that apply from day one.

**Encrypted audit trail** — automatically records session activity, building the kind of evidence base that can support an "all reasonable steps" position.

**Compliance documentation pack** — includes policy templates, staff communication materials, and EHRC alignment mapping, kept current as ERA 2025 obligations are confirmed.

**One-hour deployment** — removes the technical and logistical barriers that often delay compliance programmes. Most agencies can be operational the same day they sign up.

---

*Rebecca Evans is founder of The Sentry. She spent 18 years working as a letting agent before founding the company.*

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## The Worker Protection Act 2023: What It Means for Estate Agents

**URL**: https://thesentry.co.uk/insights/worker-protection-act-2023
**Published**: 2026-05-01
**Updated**: 2026-07-21
**Category**: Legal Compliance
**Author**: Rebecca Evans

## What the Worker Protection Act 2023 means for estate agents

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 came into force on 26 October 2024, introducing one of the most significant changes to UK harassment law in a generation. Employers are now legally required to take proactive, anticipatory steps to prevent sexual harassment, not merely respond to complaints after they occur.

For the UK property sector, this obligation is acute. Estate agents, letting agents, and property managers routinely conduct solo viewings with clients they have never met, in unoccupied properties, without colleagues present. The Act extends employer liability to harassment by third parties in higher-risk scenarios, meaning a client who harasses a negotiator during a viewing can create liability exposure for the employing agency.

## The +25% tribunal uplift

The Act grants employment tribunals the power to increase compensation by up to 25% where an employer is found to have failed to take reasonable preventative steps. With the average tribunal award for sex discrimination and harassment claims currently standing at £53,403 (2023/24 reporting period, and uncapped in the way discrimination awards generally are), this uplift can take typical exposure to around £67,000 before legal costs are considered.

The EHRC has been clear that passive policies sitting in a staff handbook are unlikely, on their own, to demonstrate the proactive action the duty requires. Tribunals are expected to look for evidence of operational systems that actively support workers in the field, not just a document.

## What the EHRC says about property viewings

The EHRC published its final updated technical guidance and an accompanying Employer 8-step guide on 26 September 2024, ahead of the duty coming into force. Step 7 of that guide specifically addresses dealing with harassment by third parties (customers, clients, suppliers, and members of the public), directly relevant to client-facing estate agents. The guide indicates that employers should, among other things:

- Assess the specific risks posed by third-party contact
- Put in place ways for workers to raise concerns and alarms
- Keep records that support the organisation's evidence of taking action
- Provide workers with a confidential route to report concerns

The EHRC's guidance isn't legally binding, but tribunals are likely to treat it as a key reference point when assessing whether an employer met the duty. A basic mobile phone, used informally, is unlikely on its own to demonstrate the kind of systematic approach the guidance describes.

## The compliance gap in the property sector

A survey of 1,000 UK estate agents by lone worker safety provider Peoplesafe found that 53% had no formal lone worker policy in place. Separately, a survey of UK estate agents conducted by Putney estate agent Allan Fuller (cited by Propertymark) found that only 22% of agents feel safe when on viewings, and 82% feel their safety isn't taken seriously enough by their employer.

This sits against a backdrop of real pressure on the tribunal system. HMCTS data shows the Employment Tribunal's open caseload rose by around 49% year-on-year, from 45,751 cases in January 2025 to 68,192 in January 2026, driven partly by anticipation of the Employment Rights Act 2025 changes. A growing caseload doesn't by itself increase an individual employer's risk, but it does mean claims that are brought are taking longer to resolve and are under more scrutiny.

## How The Sentry supports WPA 2023 compliance

The Sentry is built around the practical requirements the Act and EHRC guidance point to:

**Live location sharing** creates a timestamped record of solo viewing activity, supporting a picture of active oversight of field staff.

**One-touch panic alarm with automatic recording** gives staff a fast, low-effort way to raise an alarm: a meaningful step up from relying on a phone call or text message in a moment of genuine distress.

**Private incident reporting channel** provides a confidential reporting route consistent with EHRC Step 4, allowing staff to raise concerns without going through the person they may be reporting.

**Compliance documentation pack** provides policy templates, risk assessment frameworks, and staff communication materials that help demonstrate the kind of proactive employer action the duty is looking for.

## Why informal WhatsApp check-ins are a weak position to defend

Many estate agencies rely on informal WhatsApp check-ins as their main lone worker safety measure. This is worth rethinking, for a few practical reasons:

- WhatsApp has no automated emergency escalation; someone has to notice a message has stopped, and act on it
- An informal message thread is a weaker form of evidence than a structured, timestamped audit trail if an employer later needs to show what steps were taken
- Relying solely on a personal messaging app doesn't obviously match the kind of systematic approach HSE's INDG73 guidance on lone working describes

None of this means informal check-ins are automatically unlawful, but if a claim is ever brought, an employer relying only on ad hoc messages is in a noticeably weaker position than one with a documented, automated system.

## A note on insurance

Some employer liability insurers are beginning to factor health & safety and harassment-prevention compliance into underwriting decisions. Persistent, known non-compliance could, in principle, be relevant to how an insurer handles a claim, though the specific consequences depend on the policy wording and circumstances, and this shouldn't be presented as a guaranteed or automatic outcome. It's a reason to take the duty seriously, not a certainty to lead with.

## Key dates and actions

- **26 October 2024:** Worker Protection Act 2023 in force: the "reasonable steps" duty applies now
- **6 April 2026:** ERA 2025 whistleblowing provisions in force: harassment reports can qualify as protected disclosures
- **30 October 2026 (projected):** ERA 2025 "all reasonable steps" duty, with third-party liability reinstated

With a realistic 6–9 month lead time to build a genuinely operational compliance programme, not just a policy document, estate agencies that haven't yet put a dedicated lone worker safety system in place have good reason to start now.

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*Rebecca Evans is founder of The Sentry. She spent 18 years working as a letting agent before founding the company.*

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