Anne Gregory

Provision of services

Community Alarms appeared to offer practical support and help, even a solution to a very real need. Not only could they relieve the safety and security anxieties of older people, they could also save lives. The introduction of relatively simple new technology could solve many major problems associated with growing old.
The Community Alarms is a simple concept. Historically, Help the Aged first recognized their true potential in the mid 1980s. The Charity teamed up with Tunstall Telecommunications, market leaders in the field. The alarm is a simple affair, a red button set in a pendant which is arranged as a necklace. Anyone in difficulty simply has to press the button to transmit an automatic signal. The pendant is actually a radio transmitter which can activate a telephone programmed to send out an emergency message. The transmitter has a range of 25 yards and can work through wooden doors. The signal is usually picked up by 24 hour control centre, often managed by the local authority. Staff at the centre can speak to the person in trouble through a two-way speaker on the telephone. The centre can initiate emergency cover immediately if needed.
There are some 400 control centres in the UK. Help the Aged has an operating agreement with half of them. It also runs two of its own monitoring centres.
Although many older people already have a lifeline to the outside world – the telephone – Help the Aged believes this is not enough. Before entering the alarms market, the Charity conducted detailed research to assess need and has continued to evaluate the programme since it began seven years ago.
In public relations terms, this continuous evaluation has provided invaluable data, proving the worth of the project to potential donors and sponsors. One in ten people issued with the alarm found cause to use it in an emergency. Importantly, 86 per cent of respondents said they felt safer with an alarm system. Research indicated that some people felt the alarms were too ‘ugly’ to wear, yet the same people also admitted to feeling safer when wearing one.
The Community Alarm Campaign provided the opportunity to tell a good story on a human scale. It proved successful in press and PR terms as well as providing a source of reassurance for some 35,000 elderly people. Over ten years more 26,000 units have been installed and 7 million raised. Community Alarms captured the imagination of local and national fundraising groups, individuals and of local and national media outlets. In today’s climate of increased emphasis on community care, community alarms help guard people’s right to stay independently in their own homes for as long as possible. They were ahead of their time but should now constitute an indispensable part of any care package.
Help the Aged has benefited by plugging into the growing opportunities in the applications of new technology for older people. The Charity has much to give by way of specialist advice and information services which can now be delivered via new, easily accessible IT channels. Potential Sponsors have become aware of possible attractive partnerships with Help the Aged in delivering services to a target age group and raising their profile in selected geographical areas.
While Community Alarms had formed part of the Be Safe Campaign, four years later the more comprehensive Home Safety Campaign was introduced. Rather than concentrate solely on community alarms, the concept of home safety was expanded. Essentially, the campaign would pioneer the fitting of home ‘safety kits’, which included mortice locks, door chains, eye viewers, window locks and smoke alarms. The campaign had three prime objectives, Information Provision, Fundraising and Installation of the approved kits. From the very beginning, Help the Aged sought to secure individual corporate sponsors prepared to support selected areas of the campaign. The three advice leaflets covering Safety, Security at Home and Fire Prevention were financed by Chubb and were designed to reassure and inform rather than alarm, the reader.
Each leaflet was endorsed by a separate, reputable organization. Thus Security in your Home was backed by Crime Concern, Fire by the National Association of Safety in the Home and Safety in Your Home by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.
The original campaign was launched on the back of a commissioned survey, in this case by Harris. The same practice was to be employed again for the relaunch later when the Home Secretary played a leading part. A video news release was produced. Twenty-two separate television broadcasts resulted, quite apart from extensive print and radio coverage.
Having already established the relevant crime statistics before embarking on the Home Safety campaign, additional data was gathered which would support the drive to distribute smoke alarms and other safety and security devices.
A major area of focus became fire prevention. Survey information revealed that of the 642 deaths caused by the nearly 65,000 fires in the UK, 47 per cent involved people over 59.
Since older people are generally naturally less mobile, a relatively inexpensive device such as a smoke alarm would give valuable extra time for evacuation.

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