Skip to content
Lanyards are a regular feature within healthcare settings – designed to make identifying staff members easy. Knowing who’s who is important for managing security but it also helps put patients at ease. In this blog, we look at the best lanyards for healthcare settings and what you need to include as part of your personalised design.
How are lanyards used in healthcare settings?
Lanyards are an important part of the healthcare uniform; relied upon by staff, visitors and patients to help identify the people who work in that setting. Whether it's a local GP surgery, a care home, or even a large NHS hospital in an inner-city area, it's important that everyone who works there is easily identifiable for patient safety and comfort.
There are three main uses for the lanyard in healthcare settings:
- Proof of authority
- Access to secure areas
- Personalisation
Though you might not know it, the public are so used to seeing nurses, doctors and carers wearing lanyards, that if someone wasn't wearing one, it would seem unusual.
Along with the ID card attached, they are seen as proof of authority so you can be certain that the person wearing it is part of the staff. What's more, the right lanyard will tell you who the person is, their role in the organisation and what department they work in, which is important for making sure the right people are where they should be.
Security is important and lanyards often have access cards attached, so staff can get in and out of locked areas, but they also add a touch of personalisation. For patients and visitors, knowing the first name of the person treating them can be a real comfort, and it helps to establish a good patient-carer relationship.
The best lanyards for healthcare settings
The three most popular types of lanyard and attachment in healthcare settings are those with lanyard card holders, lanyards with a retractable wheel for access cards, and woven lanyards with a stitched-in logo for extra durability.
Screen-printed with lanyard cardholders
These flat polyester lanyards are available in a range of colours and can be screen-printed with your choice of logo and text. All our lanyards come with a metal trigger clip as standard, which fits a rigid plastic cardholder. These holders are ideal for pre-printed ID cards, and they are available with a single or double-sided open face.
Lanyards with a retractable wheel
For lanyards with an access card attached, a retractable wheel is a must-have. It saves you the hassle of taking off your lanyard every time you need to use your card. With a retractable lanyard, you can simply pull the card, and it will self-retract when you have finished.
Woven lanyards with a stitched-in logo
With this type of lanyard, you can have your logo stitched into the fabric so that it's guaranteed not to rub off or fade over time. Its hard-wearing qualities make it a firm favourite, and because it can be washed, it's ideal for healthcare settings where cleanliness is key.
Designing your personalised lanyards
At Only Lanyards, we understand that if you work for a big organisation like the NHS you will have strict identity guidelines to follow. We can match your corporate colours using Pantone and RGB colour references to guarantee an exact shade. And what's more, we can print your logo without any loss of quality for a professional finish.
To help staff, patients, and visitors to easily identify who is who, you can choose to have your lanyard printed in different colours to signify different departments and roles. For example, you might have grey for clerical staff and blue for intensive care nurses.
Some organisations choose to use the word ‘STAFF’ on their lanyard to prove the wearer's authority at a quick glance, but this can be replaced with any text (or graphics).
For healthcare settings, we recommend that you include a safety break on your personalised lanyards. Safety breaks are designed to snap apart without causing injury if the lanyard gets caught on something or if it's pulled by a patient. We include a safety break as standard on all our lanyards but if you prefer you can leave off this option.
Why use Only Lanyards for staff ID?
We have been providing the NHS with their lanyards for many years, and we are proud of our continuing relationship with the country's biggest healthcare provider. Since Only Lanyards was established in 2001, we have built up an enviable reputation working with brands across different sectors, from education to consumer brands, and more.
In this time, we've also built up a team of industry professionals who are as friendly as they are knowledgeable. From start to finish, we aim to make ordering lanyards easy, and with our simple process, we guarantee you'll find working with us hassle-free.
If you already know what you want then we can make your idea become a reality, but if you're unsure where to start, let us help you. We can advise you on the most suitable lanyard to meet your unique requirements, and if you’re lacking in inspiration, we can send you free samples of lanyards we've made for similar organisations.
Before your order is finalised, you will be sent a design proof so you can see what your lanyard will look like when it's completed. We're so confident that you'll love the finished product, that we'll refund 100% of your money if you're not delighted with your order.
Lanyards for healthcare – the key takeaway
Lanyards play an important role in keeping everyone safe, but they are also a much-needed way of personalising healthcare. The right lanyard makes it easy to identify who everyone is at a quick glance, and when it's accompanied with an ID badge, patients can also see the name, role and department of the person treating them. Putting everyone on first-name terms is a great way of breaking down barriers and raising standards.