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Original poster

Would you monitor a fall alarm for a neighbour?

199 replies

poshcrisps · 09/10/2025 15:15

I have an elderly, very vulnerable neighbour who is just about to get out of hospital. He has no family. He has fallen several times.

I've just had a phone call from the hospital asking if I could be the response person for his alarm going off (I'm not sure how this works in practice).

I said yes but now I'm wondering if I've been too hasty.

What would you do?

OP posts:
shhblackbag · 09/10/2025 18:06

NoCommentingFromNowOn · 09/10/2025 16:29

These things should be dealt with by proper companies who have staff overnight. Expecting a random neighbour to have their phone on and sound up all night, to go over in the middle of the night and stay there for hours and hours while the ambulance is ‘on the way’ and to take a days annual leave or day off sick because they haven’t slept is insane.

Everyone wants to be nice and neighbourly but what about your kids, your job, your other responsibilities?

Agree. It's too much to put on a neighbour IMO

DemonsandMosquitoes · 09/10/2025 18:07

No. And if he is willing to let you do this I would think far less of him tbh. I wouldn’t even want my adult children doing this. They have lives to lead. Where will it end? Completely unreasonable.

Lougle · 09/10/2025 18:08

My DF is first responder for their neighbour. If she triggers her alarm, a company phones him. He checks on her and then says 'she's fine' or 'she needs a doctor' or 'she needs an ambulance'. They arrange what's needed and then the relevant service takes over.

shhblackbag · 09/10/2025 18:08

verybighouseinthecountry · 09/10/2025 17:17

I did for a lovely lady who lived about a 5 minute drive from me (whom I'd known for 10 years) and did not consider the implications at all. I used to get calls during the night and I'd have to go and try to gain access, pick her up off the floor if needs be, sometimes call an ambulance (they once told me it would be a 10+ hour wait and I'd have to stay with her). I was once on a weekend away with my family and got a call to say she'd pressed the button but they couldn't get any verbal response from her, and that I had to go and check on her. I explained I was several hours away and told them to phone the police, they said they couldn't do that and it was my responsibility. I was really cross but couldn't have that on my conscience so drove back to find her lying on the floor and I couldn't get her up on my own. Had to call an ambulance, wait half a day with her then had to stay in A&E with her for another 12 hours as she was confused due to dehydration and she couldn't communicate properly.
Social services wouldn't give her any help because I was "looking after her" and she went really downhill and should have been in a nursing home but again SS and her own GP didn't care because she was eating (I had to do all her shopping and then cleaning). She was finally hospitalised after a fall and she had an assessment and was put in a nursing home, where she told everyone I was stealing from her!

Nightmare.

Tiredofwhataboutery · 09/10/2025 18:17

verybighouseinthecountry · 09/10/2025 17:17

I did for a lovely lady who lived about a 5 minute drive from me (whom I'd known for 10 years) and did not consider the implications at all. I used to get calls during the night and I'd have to go and try to gain access, pick her up off the floor if needs be, sometimes call an ambulance (they once told me it would be a 10+ hour wait and I'd have to stay with her). I was once on a weekend away with my family and got a call to say she'd pressed the button but they couldn't get any verbal response from her, and that I had to go and check on her. I explained I was several hours away and told them to phone the police, they said they couldn't do that and it was my responsibility. I was really cross but couldn't have that on my conscience so drove back to find her lying on the floor and I couldn't get her up on my own. Had to call an ambulance, wait half a day with her then had to stay in A&E with her for another 12 hours as she was confused due to dehydration and she couldn't communicate properly.
Social services wouldn't give her any help because I was "looking after her" and she went really downhill and should have been in a nursing home but again SS and her own GP didn't care because she was eating (I had to do all her shopping and then cleaning). She was finally hospitalised after a fall and she had an assessment and was put in a nursing home, where she told everyone I was stealing from her!

Crikey no good deed goes unpunished. I’d be worried about this sort of thing. It’s a lot to take in and I think it’s better in a way to say no at the start then a professional set up can be organised rather than relying on kindness of neighbours.

ThreePears · 09/10/2025 18:20

@poshcrisps How did the hospital get your phone number?

NoCommentingFromNowOn · 09/10/2025 18:27

Lougle · 09/10/2025 18:08

My DF is first responder for their neighbour. If she triggers her alarm, a company phones him. He checks on her and then says 'she's fine' or 'she needs a doctor' or 'she needs an ambulance'. They arrange what's needed and then the relevant service takes over.

It’s not that simple though. Imagine he walks in, says ‘she needs an ambulance’ but that’s not the end of it. You said ‘they arrange what’s needed then the relevant service takes over’ but what about the 15 hours between him telling the company and the ambulance arriving? Say she’s crying? She’s wet herself (very very common), she’s in pain, she’s not eaten for two days, she’s already been on the floor since yesterday because she ‘didn’t want to bother anyone’, is your dad going to stay and wait? What about his job? The grandkids he’s supposed to fetch? The lasagna in the oven? The plumber fixing his loo? Life goes on and sometimes you can’t commit to things. Or is he going to say ‘well Sheila, the ambulance will be here by 4am, I’m going home to watch Strictly’.

@Lougle I’m not expecting you to answer these questions, I’m just putting it there for those who would do this because ‘community’, ‘neighbourly’ and other ill thought out words.

Lurkinginthefens · 09/10/2025 18:28

__Poor man, you are kind op

saraclara · 09/10/2025 18:49

When my neighbour happily agreed to be contacted if my terminally ill husband needed help, I was so bound up in what was happening to us, that I didn't realise what a responsibility that was. And she would only be necessary when I went to the shops or had to leave him for an hour or so for any reason.
Thank goodness she agreed though, or I'd not have been able to leave the house for six months. Also thank goodness that my 96 year old aunt has neighbours who are linked to her alarm.

As someone approaching 70 who lives alone and lives in fear of not being able to reach help, I find it really depressing that I might never be able to assume that I can have an alarm. I suspect that in the days of ambulances arriving within minutes, people night have been more willing to do it.

Anyway, I'd agree, for those reasons. That one day it could be me.

Bananafofana · 09/10/2025 18:52

Yes.

Wbeezer · 09/10/2025 18:57

We ended up in this situation unintentionally as our downstairs neighbour had an alarm and as he was deaf the volume on the speaker to the helpline was so loud that we could hear the shouted through the floor. It happened in the night several times, I think he got disoriented getting up for a pee in the night. It was rather stressful and I wouldn’t volunteer for it unless I was very fond of the person involved.

Livpool · 10/10/2025 12:57

Of course I would

VioletandMauve · 10/10/2025 13:01

No I definitely wouldn’t.

Uuiyo · 10/10/2025 13:01

No, I’d be willing to help adhoc with things, but not something like a fall monitor that could go off all times

WaltzingWaters · 10/10/2025 13:07

my Nan used to accidentally press hers without realising and her carer would have to go over, to find her safely fast asleep in bed none the wiser. You could end up being called at all times of night. What happens when you’re away or busy?
I would happily do it temporarily if family were away for a week or so. But as a permanent basis, as much as I would want to help, I would have my concerns.

LooseCanyon · 10/10/2025 13:18

Absolutely not.

Anybody on this thread saying they would, has either not thought through the implications, or ever had to be responsible for an extremely elderly and infirm person who the NHS wanted to fob off on them.

LooseCanyon · 10/10/2025 13:19

Livpool · 10/10/2025 12:57

Of course I would

Really? In the middle of the night you'd go round there, find the elderly person in a pool of their own faeces, call for an ambulance, be told they'll be a few hours, try to move the person but it's not possible, then what do you do? Just go off to work and leave them? Ignore your own children who need to get to school?

AnnaMagnani · 10/10/2025 13:24

My mum's next-door neighbour does this for. He really likes her, she makes him cakes which helps and most of the time it doesn't involve anything on his part.

However he doesn't have to do it, it's his choice.

It's generally a young families street with a few elderly residents who never moved out of their first home. Everyone helps out the older ones.

Davros · 10/10/2025 13:27

No. When we had a falls alarm, there was a better (more expensive) option available. The alarm triggers a call to a specialist falls team who come out, assess if picking them up is viable or not and then act accordingly. You can’t do that and shouldn’t be asked to. Check if that’s available and then say you can’t be responsible, especially for decisions on picking up, calling an ambulance etc

EasternStandard · 10/10/2025 13:29

verybighouseinthecountry · 09/10/2025 17:17

I did for a lovely lady who lived about a 5 minute drive from me (whom I'd known for 10 years) and did not consider the implications at all. I used to get calls during the night and I'd have to go and try to gain access, pick her up off the floor if needs be, sometimes call an ambulance (they once told me it would be a 10+ hour wait and I'd have to stay with her). I was once on a weekend away with my family and got a call to say she'd pressed the button but they couldn't get any verbal response from her, and that I had to go and check on her. I explained I was several hours away and told them to phone the police, they said they couldn't do that and it was my responsibility. I was really cross but couldn't have that on my conscience so drove back to find her lying on the floor and I couldn't get her up on my own. Had to call an ambulance, wait half a day with her then had to stay in A&E with her for another 12 hours as she was confused due to dehydration and she couldn't communicate properly.
Social services wouldn't give her any help because I was "looking after her" and she went really downhill and should have been in a nursing home but again SS and her own GP didn't care because she was eating (I had to do all her shopping and then cleaning). She was finally hospitalised after a fall and she had an assessment and was put in a nursing home, where she told everyone I was stealing from her!

This is a lot, if you’d been out of the country instead they couldn’t just say ‘your responsibility’ and leave it at that surely

KnottyKnitting · 10/10/2025 13:35

Absolutely do not do this. I do this for my DF who lives around the corner. He is forever accidentally pressing the button and is quite deaf so he doesn’t hear the call from the careline people. Or me asking if he is ok. I have been called no less than ten (yes ten) times where I have screeched round there thinking I will find him at the bottom of the stairs to see him rather bemused as to why I am there and totally unaware he has pressed the button. Drives me bloody insane! It’s got to a boy who cries wolf situation… it’s bad enough doing this for a family member- NO WAY would I do it for a neighbour.

DarkRootsBlue · 10/10/2025 13:44

Tricky one. If it was a neighbour I was good friends with, I would do it. Purely because this will probably be me one day, I don’t have family.

There was an attempt to rope me into being a carer for my elderly neighbour a few years ago. I had to make it really clear I wanted nothing to do with it, I couldn’t stand him and he had spent years beforehand when he had family and was younger being incredibly unfriendly. I just thought ‘you reap what you sow’.

daffodilandtulip · 10/10/2025 13:47

What if he falls every hour in the night? What if you want to go on holiday? What if you've had a bit too much gin?

Silverbirchleaf · 10/10/2025 13:47

My parents have three names on their monitor, so if they can’t get one, they’ll call another, and if no response, 999. We have neighbours listed for my parents. They’ve only been called out once a year, when my dm had genuinely fallen.

My parents pay monthly for their service.

ShesTheAlbatross · 10/10/2025 13:51

tiresomee · 09/10/2025 16:38

No I wouldn’t and i’ve worked in domiciliary care. Once SS think there is someone else for this man to rely on, you will be expected to do more and more.

This would be my concern.

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