Would you monitor a fall alarm for a neighbour?

[poshcrisps]

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?

This is exactly what happened with my family member. She did have lots of falls, but I would also end up rushing around a minimum of once a night to what turned out to be her wanting her hot water bottle put back in her back because she had kicked it out in her sleep, and woken with cold feet. But because she was falling several times a day, I couldn’t risk leaving it.
And to those saying you don’t need to do any lifting because hoists are provided - the one my family remember had required 2 people to operate it safely.
It’s really, really hard being a carer for an
elderly family member you adore, even a part time carer. Doing it on top of a full time responsibility like work or young children just wouldn’t be possible.

To the people saying no, I hope you’re one day in the position of needing that support and your neighbours refuse. I am in the process of setting this up for myself simply because I live alone and want someone to be able to alert the emergency services if I’m incapacitated. Both people I asked are happy to help.

I think this is a slippery slope to you becoming more and more responsible since for him… I would only do this for a family member or very close friend.

It's one of those things where if you knew that you'd be properly backed up with appropriate services when needed then more people would do it. Most of us have other commitments and be asked to wait for 5-10 hours for an ambulance response at any time day or night isn't realistic.

People here talking nonsense.
I have a lifeline alarm myself.
I am also a retired nurse and have been the contact on a lifeline alarm for someone before I became disabled.
The level of responsibility is that the alarm will go through to an operator.
The operator will speak to the person who has fallen.
If they respond the operator will try to ascertain if an ambulance is needed and if so will call one directly.
If they get no answer from the person they will call you because you are closest and ask if you can go next door and check if the person is ok.
If you go round then you can call an ambulance if needed or whatever other support.
This may involve calling the GP or carers or whatever.
If they get no answer from you or if you can’t go round they will call an ambulance.
That is pretty much it.

No wonder the world is fucked with some of the I’m alright Jack responses on this thread.

Do make sure you ignore any response from anyone who's not engaging with the reality of our current ambulance system waiting times OP.

You say calling the GP or ambulance as if it’s simple and quick.

This is exactly what I thought before I got myself into the involuntary carer role. Having a disabled child, I felt it is society's duty of care to assist/support the vulnerable and I very willingly did this. I'll go a bit more into detail now:

• first 6 months I didn't hear anything, my elderly friend would phone me if she needed shopping. I'd go once a week for a few hours to change her bed, put out rubbish, bring food shopping, top up electric. All fine.
• she went downhill quickly and kept falling. Very quickly she lost the ability to use the phone and her emergency button was used as a way to contact me. I'm not a total bitch, so couldn't ignore this. I'd go at 3 in the morning and she'd tell me she'd soiled herself (in the bed) and couldn't change the sheets herself. Or that she'd run out of electric, or milk, or continence products, or medication.
• she was falling up to several times per week and initially just needed a hand up. This turned into me needing to find another adult to help me get her up, then it was the ambulance every time as she was often confused or said she'd bumped her head. I am the carer of a disabled child and this was having a big impact on my family, but again, I felt obligated as I wasn't going to leave a woman alone in this situation. One call could mean I didn't return home for 24 hours.
• I became responsible for getting her medication for her. She was not able to take it properly at the right times/dosages and at this point I alerted social services and her GP, telling my concerns and stating that I would not be able to continue to give the level of support due to my own caring responsibilities.
• GP said it was a matter for SS, who came out and said she was managing fine as her house was clean/tidy, fridge was stocked and she had the emergency care button if she needed help! I explained all of the above was because I was making sure of this, but could no longer do this. Social worker completely blanked me and said she didn't currently meet threshold for even a minimal package of care support.
• I started to get anxiety over her all the time, was she going to be dead every time I walked in through the door, every time the phone rang was it going to be from the button people to say she needs help
• I contacted GP, social services and community pharmacist numerous times to say she was deteriorating and not able to manage without considerable amount of support. Ignored every single time
• This went on for several years, in all of this time she never had a visit from any family. Her 2 DC were no contact (and had been for years) and her sister was alive and lived a few miles away but very low contact. Christmas cards only type of thing.
• She was admitted after one fall with confusion (which was her normal state) and I had become the defacto NoK. Social worker phoned me to say they were keeping her in to do assessment as they didn't think she could go home without a care package. I explained that I had reported these concerns many times, I was a carer myself so could not keep giving the help that I was. I explained she had a sister and that I was NoK not out of my choice, I did not want to have that level of responsibility.
• social worker got back to me days later, questioning me as to why I had been helping so much, when I wasn't family nor was I getting paid. Again, I said I never set out to be her carer, I had tried many times to send out an SOS and no one really cared. It transpired her sister appeared, absolutely furious that I was NoK, and had raised doubts about my intentions (I'd never met her). Elderly friend then apparently said she suspected I had "sticky fingers" and had been taking ornaments and duvet covers from her house. This was very upsetting as I'd spent so much money on her over the past several years, and I wouldn't have even wanted anything from her house, even if I was a thief.
• I don't regret it, but if I was asked again I'd be putting very clear boundaries in place and sticking to them.

I cannot stress how difficult all of the above was, it sounds very straightforward written down, but the pressure on me was horrendous. I have never been so happy for someone to go into hospital, as awful as that sounds, but it was literally like me being released from a prison sentence.

Exactly.

If it was a case of simply going over and calling an ambulance that would then arrive within the hour I’m sure many of the no answers on here would be a yes. But that’s not the reality. My own dad waited 15 hours for an ambulance having fallen from his wheelchair and knocking himself out, lying with a bleeding head.

I can think of a million valid reasons why someone would be fine to pop over for 1 hour to call an ambulance but then not be able to sit there for 10+ hours to wait.

I have also had experience of the other scenarios mentioned above where people say the person either repeatedly triggered the alarm by accident without realising, or for non urgent reasons like for a cup of tea or for the remote control.

Unless I was very close long term friends with the neighbour I would say no. PPs saying this is the OT trying to fob off the correct care on neighbours are right.

I agree.

I once waited for hours with a neighbour who has fallen. This wasn’t an elderly person situation, it was a middle aged man who slipped. We (some other neighbours and I) couldn’t get him into our car because he basically passed out when we tried to move him. So he lay for hours on the ground in February in the rain until the ambulance arrived - obviously we got blankets and an umbrella etc. He’d badly broken his ankle, and needed surgery to put a couple of pins in it.
I was able to switch to wfh that day and I have flexible hours so it didn’t really matter. But it wouldn’t be something I could do often, or if I’d had something specific on that day my boss wouldn’t have been happy. And if I was someone who lost pay if I didn’t show up, then it would be even worse. There’s loads of reasons people don’t have hours and hours to sit with a neighbour. And it doesn’t mean they’re heartless, it means that they need to go to work because they need to be paid, or it means that their children are small and can’t be left/need to be picked up, or it means they are a carer for a relative and have to go to them, or it means they have health issues themselves that make it hard.

I mean we'd have to radically change things in schools and workplaces for this to be feasible. I'm trying to imagine ringing my child's school to say that I can't come pick them up, I'm camped out in my neighbors living room and I've been told it could be up to 15 hours for an ambulance.

My sister begged me to do this for our mother as I live a few mins away and her and my other siblings are 1+ hours away. I refused as it would have meant calls at all times of day and night and I didn’t want to be responsible for any care whatsoever .

We said yes for our next door neighbour. She has family about 25 mins away who are also listed but it made sense to have us as someone closer until they arrived.

We already found her after a fall in which she broke her hip, she didn't have an alarm then, but we heard her shouting. I'm glad she has the alarm now, as god knows what would have happened if we didn't hear her that time! We only waited about 20 mins for an first response ambulance, then her family arrived and a proper ambulance came about an hour later to take her to hospital.

I have an elderly friend in this situation and he is lucky enough that he has two neighbours close by who have agreed to this and I'm third on the list (I live further away). The neighbours have been called round on a regular basis, probably every few months. They are fairly young in both cases and they are couples, so they can deal with getting him up but its not easy (and really they should call an ambulance).

I did this for an elderly neighbour a long time ago. The careline people have a list of contacts, if you're not available for some reason, they will contact the next on the list. I was only contacted once, when she had had a fall. I got her up, and she was OK. I'm now approaching the age when I might need an alarm myself!

I’d want to completely understand what the expectations were, be sure my neighbour was happy for me to do this as and either give me a key or access to a key box. I would agree for my current neighbours if asked as I would be able to get there quickly and I know their family would swoop in to help as soon as they could get there and take on anything longer term as needed.

No. I have way more than my fair share of commitments already

In my case a neighbour tried to guilt me into being a reserve keyholder for NDN. I have mobility problems myself and cannot bend to pick things from the floor let along lift another person. I also have angina and arthritis and am well ware of how little I could do to help another person. As some of the people on this thread have commented you cannot leave young children unattended while you look after/wait with a neighbour.

There is another aspect which I believe one or two people have mentioned. This is whether or not you have the permission of the care-needer to hold keys and enter their home. At least one poster has mentioned the ingratitude and sometimes suspicion of relatives. Going into someones house alone puts you are risk of accusations of theft or even abuse.

During the pandemic I did "ring and chat" with some housebound people. One relative was extremely rude and accused me of pestering and harassing her mother and told me not to call again. I know social services became involved in a safeguarding capacity and that was only a phone contact.

Its true that no good dead goes unpunished.

Totally agree with this. I've worked in the care sector for over 30 years, and have seen countless situations whereby well-meaning neighbours have ended up inadvertently being front and centre of an elderly person's care plan.

Op, you can offer up help in lots of different 'informal' ways, by being an attentive and friendly neighbour. But, please don't put your name to anything official, as it may very quickly become your situation to sort.

I am not familiar with the different type of emergency button services, but the one I was involved with told me it was not within their remit to call emergency services. I was expected to leave my family holiday and drive several hours back otherwise she would have lay there until I returned the next day.

"Pop them back on a chair" - you think that the OP would be able to "pop" this frail, vulnerable man back on his chair? Or into his bed?

An elderly relation of mine got herself into a bath once. It took hours, and two paramedics, to get her out again.

Not everyone has the strength to "pop" someone back to where they were. And often, that would injure the person more anyway. How would the OP know if they had broken something, for instance?

So we're back to waiting hours for paramedics...

This may involve calling the GP or carers or whatever.

Why on earth would the OP call the GP? The GP can't do anything in these circumstances. And now the OP also has to have the phone number of the care team? And try and get them to come round, which they won't? So now the OP has to call the paramedics. Which could have all been done without the intervention of the OP.

It's really not as simple as "pop round and see if they're OK".

We had this for my husband, as he suffered from seizures. A neighbour 3 doors down kindly did this for us, although we had a second responder if she wasn't in. I think she only had to come out once, as most as his seizures were nocturnal. It really depends on whether the calls are likely to be frequent.

I don't believe this - I think they guilted you into going - but if you'd said 'I'm in Spain' they wouldn't have expected you to jump on a flight back! They'd have dealt with it. TBH, the people on this thread who've been taken advantage of have allowed that to happen. If the OP doesn't want to do it, okay, but the level of responsibility that has been asked of NDNs is ridiculous and any NDN with suitable boundaries would never agree to such outrageous demands.

This is so despairingly familiar.

What would your response be to the likes of @Cantwaitrogetold25 who state that it's just 'being a keyholder', and that people who cannot commit to this are arseholes?