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County Telecare Service in Worcestershire  

Telecare in WorcestershireThe Telecare Service helps to promote independent living for older people and people with long term health conditions. This service, which supports older people to stay safe and live independently in their own home is being expanded throughout Worcestershire

What is Telecare
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The innovative Telecare service provides vulnerable people with new equipment that can monitor their safety and well-being at home. Should there be any problem the equipment alerts a family member, a carer or a central monitoring centre.

Environmental Sensors
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Telecare is the new name for more advanced community alarm services. Community alarms plug into telephones lines and come with a call button (pendant) which can be worn by an individual. Using the call button help can be summoned from anywhere in the home or garden.

Telecare is an evolution of the pendant alarm system that many service users already use, with more sophisticated additonal features such as environmental sensors. The sensors can detect:  

• Extreme heat
• Smoke  
• Carbon monoxide and natural gas  
• Flooding  
• Prolonged low room temperature  

Service users can also wear sensors that detect if they fall, and another device can monitor general well-being by recording levels of activity.

Telecare House Sensors

If one of the sensors is triggered, its base unit will raise an alert through the service user’s telephone line to a community alarm centre. If the alert is an emergency, or if the operator can’t contact the person at home, the operator will contact a family member, a friend or a neighbour. If necessary, the operator can also alert the emergency services.

Personal Safety
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Telecare sensors can also monitor where a person is in their home such and can detect if:

• Someone has stopped moving
• Someone has fallen
• The service user has gone outside
• The person is in bed or sitting in a chair

Personal support and support for carers
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Not all Telecare devices are like the pendant alarms. There are also stand alone gadgets that can be really valuable in keeping independence whilst living at home. They include for example:

• door entry systems
• remote-controlled power sockets
• medication dispensers
• remote controlled curtains and windows.

Telecare systems are already being used by some people across the county, thanks to other Providers who have run them successfully. Now the County Council is developing telecare as a community care service.

Councillor Philip Gretton, Cabinet Member for Adult and Community Services, said: “By reducing the risks that threaten independence, Telecare aims to help people live in their own home for longer, more safely and with greater confidence,”

The service is available to particularly vulnerable people after an assessment of their needs has taken place.

The County Council works closely with other organisations in Worcestershire to make the service as flexible as possible so it meets as many needs as it can. Partnership organisations include local health services,housing associations,district councils and voluntary organisations.