General Chat

Like me it hurts to read about people going missing from home or Nursing homes .why don't people with illness and vunerable have a tag or alarm devise so they could be tracked if they wander off .would it work ? also could apply to children it can happen so quickly & a simple devise could save heartache & worry .? Barbara

With my own experience of elderly and disable I doubt he would have worn it!

Its just the same with personal pendant-style safety alarms. They 'don't need it'...until they do then they can't get to where they left it!

A tracking device is fine in theory but, in the case of care homes, the managers would probably be fearful of impinging on the clients 'personal liberty'.

In an incident related by a colleague, an older gentleman was rendered unable to communicate either in writing or speech. Although otherwise physically fit, he was now mentally disabled by the Stroke.
He'd by-pass any security device installed in his house & jump on a train. He'd eventually be recognised and returned to his family. It was suggested the family fitted a tracking device to, say, his belt. The consensus of opinion was that he'd remove it & they'd be back to square one. :-0

I know of personal alarms as once I was a carer in the community & many of service users had either necklace or wrist band a neighbour or call centre key holder could get help much rather an elderly or family member have some sort of devise to be tracked & found before a tragic event .were do you draw the line on keeping tabs & privacy

OH's grandmother was a wanderer after she became demented ........... hale and healthy but living in the past.

She used to spend 3 weeks at a time with OH's mother and her sister ........... at OH's house, they used to lock all the outside doors and remove the keys. Grandmother still got out and wandered off. On a couple of occasions she was seen by someone in the centre of town who took her to the police station, where she was given a cup of tea while they found out where she lived.

After that ................ she deliberately "gave herself up" on several occasions, saying there was such a nice young lady there who gave her a lovely cup of tea..

At the aunt's house, neighbours would see her hat bobbing past their hedge and call the aunt. Or she would get on the bus into town ............ after several such trips the regular bus conductors would recognise her and take her back on the return journey.

Everyone worried but she was otherwise so healthy that someone would have had to be awake 24/7 and covering every exit to each house.


We did have one happening a few years ago .............. OH was working in the front garden and I was talking to him when an elderly gentleman walked past. He looked smart, healthy, walked upright although with a walking stick. We said Hello, and he stopped to talk. It didn't talk long for us to realise he was more than a little confused and didn't know where he was.

Then we saw that his cane had a label stuck on it .................. with his name, address and phone number.

OH phoned, it turned out to be a care home about 2 miles away. OH got the car out and took him back there.

What a great idea!

Good idea just to add what about putting labels in people's clothes Name & phone no the way we did when our children started school that could help maybe ..

I have a label on my walking stick - leave it too often in supermarket trolleys!
(And wheelie walker) - and in the back of my not-smart mobile phone which also has the ICE rescue number to OH in the phone contacts list

Problem with putting name labels in clothes for people in care homes is that I am hearing more and more stories about care homes in both England and here NOT returning clothes to their owners after they've been laundered :-(

About 7 years ago an elderly frail old woman went missing from a care home about a mile from where I live.
For days Police searched for her checking with relatives hundreds of miles away.

Some days later she was found dead behind the care home. It was mid winter and

she had no coat on. It is believed she left the care home to go to the shop and couldn't

find her way back in.Police searched miles away and she was almost on the doorstep.

Morning David its very sad when these things happen but honestly what can be done to keep people safe .big question

More reliable staff ? supervision when they leave the premises ?

Reliable nurses would have checked the perimeter of the home and found her .

Should have been where the Police should have checked ?

Easy to say David, but like Barbara, I worked for Care in the Community for over twenty years, and recruiting the right sort of staff was a extremely difficult. One of the main issues was pay and conditions (!!) which is a major issue throughout the care industry. If you pay peanuts we all know the result!!

I agree with Sharron and Detective about the wearing of devices as I know when FIL had dementia he would have found a way to remove anything like that! As was said, they don't think they need these things! Also, despite having to put his name in his clothes, he was often wearing things that weren't his, so that wouldn't have helped either. I think the only answer is better security. FIL used to tell us all the ways to get out and that he knew where the keys to the doors and gates that locked were kept. The security code keypad to leave the building could have had a shield around it to prevent residents watching you key the code in, as it was a major problem for us distracting FIL from trying to see it whenever we left. Also the main gates which were locked and only opened when you gave your details, were left wide open at times. A lot of sloppiness in these things is often because management don't have a robust monitor and check system in place.

I'm sure my MIL would have lived longer, without the bed sore if she had been bathed

more frequently and had a regular visit from her GP. But I will never know.

Care homes cost a lot of money know they have to pay staff wages & overheads but surely they should also provide top security .every one in these homes would imagine have family but if not they are all human beings & deserve privacy protection .& care .When you look round though there are a lot of council cut backs Community care has been hit hard .we use to do allsorts of jobs personal care .shopping cleaning .keeping people company but now years later microwave meal sign my paper 10 minutes top .times have changed but not for the better sad

MIL was paying the care home a large sum of money each month from the proceeds

of the sale of her house. They could have done better. She was in their care.

In the late eighties I worked overnight in a care home. Yes, I was paid peanuts, but I believe that I was a dedicated worker, and worked very hard.

Two member of staff overnight. We had to do all the downstairs cleaning. The laundry, and check on the residents.
"Checking the residents" meant going into thier bedrooms. Checking that the bed was still dry. Very often quite a few of the residents would have wet the bed. So we would change the bedlinen, wash down the resident, put them in clean nightcloes. Then proceed back to the laundry to get everything washed, dried and ironed for the morning.
We did this throughout the night, some people required changing a few times.

Some of them would get up and wonder round in the night. This was okay, as long as they did not disturb other people.
I recall one winters night, there was snow on the ground, it was about 2.30. One of the ladies who sounded lucid, (but wasn't 0 was on the phone. She had dialed 999. and asked for the police. "I am being held prisoner against my will", she told them as I approached "They won't let me out" I need the police to come and let me out" I didn't want to snatch the phone from her, so let her pause for breath, then asked if I could speak to them. She let me have the phone.
I told the police (yes, it was them on the phone), who the lady ws, who I was, where we were. Then said that if they wanted to "let her out" they could come along and do so. I had no intention of letting this vunerable woman out in the night when it was below freezing.

Handed the phone back to "my lady" and she hung up.

The police did not come round to check. Don't know if they were too busy, or just ready to take my word about the situation. I realise that they would possibly (even in those days) be able to find out here the call had come from. But a part of me was concerned at their lack of interest.
I believe that I had no legal right to keep this lady in the home against her will. But that is another kettle of fish!

Part Two

I now use a pensioners bus pass (or whatever it is called).

In my area, the buses all have a reader. I have to hold my pass against it, till the green light comes on.

Have often wondered, if in my area, if someone is missing, can the powers that be check if when and where the pass was used.
At least then "the searchers" would be able to track some of the movements of the person they are looking for.

I so agree with you Tess that poor pay doesn't always equal a poor job being done! Not everyone is just interested in the pay and care work experience gained is invaluable experience for other jobs too. In DWP the clerical assistants are only paid pence more than care workers, but when I worked there, many of them did it to supplement their partner's pay and were more interested in the actual work helping people and the comradeship they got. FIL had such good care from the workers, he said they were the best friends he'd ever had.

The care home owners get a good income as you say David. We were surprised to find that they hadn't used those mats that sound an alarm if a resident falls out of bed for FIL. He fell from his bed several times before they changed his bed for one with rails.