Policy, Policy, Policy………
As a Podiatrist, lone working is part of the job, particularly in the domiciliary setting.
The vast majority of patients that we visit at home are unable, for a variety of reasons, to attend our Halifax based clinic. We are happy to be able to offer this as a service to those who need it.
Home visits are a fairly routine appointment in general, however, in the case of new patients things can take unexpected turns!
This was never truer than during a New Patient home visit that took place at the start of June. The Podiatrist had gone to an address to meet a new patient, a male who lived alone, as is the rule, all the relevant new patient paperwork, Medical History, Consent and General New Patient Information, was sent out to the patient for him to complete and return to The Podiatrist before the treatment commenced
Before any treatment starts, the Podiatrist must have Consent signed by the person receiving treatment and should have reviewed the person’s Medical History.
Before the treatment started, the Podiatrist began to feel uneasy, because of this, the Podiatrist sent a map of their location to the work messaging group, unfortunately there were no words included, just the map……… The Podiatrist carried out the treatment, and then realised that they hadn’t reviewed the patients’ Medical History. As they were halfway through the treatment they continued, when the treatment was finished the Podiatrist asked for payment, as agreed at time of booking.
This is when things took an unexpected turn, the patient became agitated and aggressive, the Podiatrist hastily left the premises and the patient followed them, shouting and being aggressive, fearing for their safety, the Podiatrist went to their car where they were met by a neighbour, who divulged that the patient had serious mental health problems.
The Podiatrist returned to the clinic and was shaken, but thankfully unhurt!
This event shook us, as a team, to the core, we held an in-house review to enable us to go through what happened, why it happened and MOST importantly how do we prevent it from happening again in the future.
We reviewed our existing Lone Working Policy that we have in the practice to see if we needed to amend it, during this we looked at the checklist that each Lone Worker must go through before entering any Lone Working situation, from ensuring adequate charge on mobile phone to ensuring you are aware of exits.
We discussed the correct course of action to take to ensure safety when the Lone Worker is feeling ‘uneasy’ in a situation. The most important step was highlighted as ‘LEAVE the situation’ as soon as possible and get to a place of safety, make telephone contact with other members of the team in the form of an SOS alert, a picture of a map doesn’t tell anyone anything, other than where you are!
And finally, we have decided as a team that in the case of attending a NEW patient for a home visit there must be another person present in the form of a chaperone, this safeguards the interests of both the patient and the Podiatrist.
Lesson learnt with thankfully no lasting effects