Duress and panic alarm systems

Duress and panic alarm systems let staff call for help quickly, and usually silently, when they are threatened or in danger. We design fixed, wireless and wearable systems, including systems that report where the person is, and connect them to the people and systems that have to respond.

The button is the easy part. What makes a duress system work is everything behind it: the alarm reaching someone who can act, that person knowing exactly where to go, and responders arriving quickly enough to matter. A button that sounds a buzzer in an empty office, or an alarm that says only "level 2", does little for the person who pressed it. Design starts with the response and works back to the hardware.

What we design and build

• Fixed duress buttons at reception counters, interview rooms, cash offices, pharmacies and other high-risk points.
• Wireless and wearable pendants for staff who move around a building or site.
• Personal duress systems that locate staff to a zone or a room, indoors and, where needed, outdoors.
• Software panic buttons on workstations, where they fit the risk.
• Alarm routing to a security desk, a monitoring centre, responders' phones or radios, and local indicators.
• Integration with video surveillance, so cameras near the alarm come up automatically, and with access control.
• Power, supervision and testing arrangements so faults are found before the system is needed.

A duress system has three parts: the devices staff use to raise an alarm, a controller or server that identifies which device was used and where, and the outputs that tell the right people. The diagram shows how they connect.

Planning around people and places

Where devices go depends on where staff are exposed and how they move. A receptionist needs a button within reach without visibly reaching for it. A counsellor in an interview room needs one that can be pressed while seated, and a layout where they sit nearer the door than the client. Staff who walk wards, corridors, parking lots or stairwells need something they wear, and a system that can tell responders where they are.

How it works

1. We start with why. We look at the risks staff face, drawing on your workplace violence hazard assessment where you have one, and ask who will respond to an alarm, from where and how quickly. Occupational health and safety law in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario requires employers to assess the risk of workplace violence and put controls in place, and a duress system is often one of those controls.
2. Site survey. We walk the areas where staff work, including after-hours routes, parking and stairwells, note construction that affects wireless signals, and look at existing security, camera and access control systems that the duress system should connect to.
3. Design. Device types and locations, locating accuracy, alarm routing and escalation, integration, power and supervision. Where the system relies on wireless coverage, the design includes a coverage plan.
4. Tender and permit. Drawings for permit are sealed by a licensed professional engineer where required, and electrical work is done by licensed electrical contractors under permit.
5. Build and verify. Every device is tested from every place it might be used, the location reported is checked against where the tester actually stood, and alarms are confirmed at every destination with their timing noted.
6. Handover and drills. As-built device plans, configuration records, and a first response drill with the people who will answer real alarms.

What to have ready

• Floor plans and a site plan, including parking and outdoor areas staff use.
• Your workplace violence hazard assessment and any incident history you can share.
• Who responds today: security staff, managers, co-workers, a monitoring company or police.
• Details of existing security, camera, access control and phone or radio systems.

What you get

A design that shows every device, what it does and where its alarms go: device layouts, a coverage plan for wireless and locating systems, an alarm routing and escalation matrix, integration requirements for cameras and access control, specifications and a testing plan. The testing plan matters as much as the drawings, because a duress system that is never tested tends to fail quietly, with a flat pendant battery or a changed phone number nobody updated.

A typical case

A community health clinic has fixed buttons at reception that sound a buzzer in the manager's office. After an incident in an interview room, staff point out that the manager is often away from the office and that nobody else hears the buzzer. In a case like this, the design keeps the reception buttons but routes every alarm to several places at once: the building's security desk, the phones of a small group of trained staff on each shift, and a monitoring centre after hours. Interview rooms get buttons reachable from the staff chair, and outreach staff get wearable pendants that report their room. Cameras covering reception and the corridor come up automatically at the security desk. The first drill, run at handover, shows how long it takes responders to arrive, and the response plan is adjusted to match.

Who it's for

• Hospitals, clinics, mental health and addiction services.
• Social services, housing providers and government service counters.
• Schools, colleges and universities.
• Banks, pharmacies and retailers handling cash or controlled substances.
• Courts, libraries, hotels and other public-facing buildings.
• Any workplace where staff work alone or in isolated areas.

For background, read our guides on duress and panic alarms, personal duress systems that locate staff, planning the response to a duress alarm and working alone safely.

Common questions