GPS tags for dementia patients
Dementia patients are to be fitted with GPS tracking devices for the first time to save police money searching for those who regularly go missing.
Police in Sussex hope to save hundreds of thousands of pounds by avoiding costly call-outs which can involve helicopters and several police officers.
However, the move was criticised by elderly care campaigners, who described the scheme as “inhumane”.
The head of adult services at East Sussex council pledged to launch an investigation. He said urgent questions needed to be asked because the tags could stigmatise the elderly and make them feel like criminals.
The tracking device can be worn around a patient’s neck, clipped to a belt or attached to a set of house keys. It features a button which enables the wearer to speak directly to an operator in a 24-hour call centre.
Family and friends can also log in to the system and monitor the whereabouts of their elderly relatives.
More than 100 local authorities are already using similar GPS devices to track people suffering from dementia in what is an increasingly profitable business.
However, Sussex Police is the first force in the country to adopt the scheme.
The force has paid for 15 of the devices to be worn by dementia patients in an attempt to save money searching for those who regularly go missing.
The trial will cost the force £400 a month, but if successful will be rolled out across the county, which has a large elderly population. Chief Inspector Tanya Jones said: “The GPS will be very cost-effective to the police.
“It will reduce anxiety for the family and really reduce the police time spent on this issue.”
While police will pay for the scheme, the device, known as MindMe, is monitored by Chichester Careline, which is run by Chichester district council.
Several hundred people across the country are understood to wear the devices, including Alzheimer’s sufferers, pupils who attend special needs schools and those considered vulnerable or at risk.
There are currently about 800,000 people with dementia in the UK and that figure will rise to more than a million by 2021. Police are regularly called out to help find sufferers who go missing. Sgt Suzie Mitchell from Sussex Police said such technology would prove the best way forward.
“We regularly have to search for missing people with dementia,” she said.
“It is heartbreaking to see the torment that their families are put through — and to see the impact it has on the person with dementia when they are found.
“We are really excited about our involvement in this project and the difference this could make to local people.”
But Bill Bentley, an East Sussex Conservative councillor who is responsible for adult social care in the region, has demanded more details about the scheme amid fears dementia sufferers could be stigmatised by the new tracking system.
He said: “What we need to do is keep people safe and this seems like it may be a method to keep people safer. But obviously what we have to do is think about individual people’s rights.
“They may have dementia but would they actually wish to be tracked in this way?
“It’s about getting the balance between a person’s wishes and imposing a technological solution on them that they may or may not wish to have happened.”
Neil Duncan-Jordan, the national officer of the National Pensioners’ Convention, said the practice was “inhumane” and called into question the standard of basic care available for people with dementia. He said: “It smacks of criminality. These people have done nothing wrong. It puts them on a par with common offenders or people with Asbos. We should not be looking at dementia sufferers in that way.
“There has got to be a more humane way of coping with somebody’s mental state, and, if it has got to that extreme level, it does beg the question: are there not proper facilities to care for people when they have severe cases of dementia?”
“It just feels so wrong. Most people would be flabbergasted that anybody would be considering it.”
Gary Fitzgerald, the chief executive of the campaign group Action on Elder Abuse, said: “If there is a choice between someone being able to live in their own home with minimal supervision while using a tag and being in a residential home where they would not be happy I think you would be able to make an argument.
“But if the purpose of this is to save money then I think it is highly questionable.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10029205/GPS-tags-for-dementia-patients.html
