Emergency call buttons

Try your GP first, referral to falls clinic fir my DH resulted in an alarm watch which calls a help centre and the callers speak to him when it thinks he's fallen

My mother-in-law paid £30 a month for an alarm which would know if she fell over.
I know it works as it immediately spoke to her when she dropped it!

Would a baby monitor do if you are always in the same house? Just wondering.

Shel1951

My hubby has a doorbell that is on the trolley next to his (hospital) bed, its loud and he can press it to call us if we are needed, its receiver is plugged in the hall, wakes the house up

What a simple - but excellent - idea Shell951 !
One I shall be copying for my husband. Thank you.

My hubby has a doorbell that is on the trolley next to his (hospital) bed, its loud and he can press it to call us if we are needed, its receiver is plugged in the hall, wakes the house up

My friend has an alarm, but resisted wearing it. Last week she had a fall and wasn't discovered for several hours. She is now in hospital with an infection and pneumonia. Wish her well, but don't be like her!

DH has a wrist one for which we pay £20 a month. They do respond quickly when he tests it, but the receiver is in the living room and Control cannot hear him when he is in the kitchen, let alone upstairs. I suppose if he pressed the button and they could not hear him they would call me, but if he wanted me he would use his phone.

I got one from Age UK for my DH several years ago, which which seemed fine. He has never needed to use it for an emergency but they liked him to test the buttons every couple of months, so he became very comfortable with using it. It came with an outside key press, which is useful in itself (with an easy PIN, he can let himself in if he loses his keys).
BUT. The problem is that Age UK sold the business to someone else, who sold it to someone else, who sold it... Well, you get the idea. The service has gradually gone down the pan with each successive owner. Now, the response time is dreadful - up to 20 minutes of electronic beeping, cutting out, re-dialing and more beeping. If you factor in the time they'd take to answer, speak to him and call out the emergency services, plus the time they would take to retrieve the key from the press, the waiting time becomes more or less open-ended.
Sick of the whole rigmarole (for which we paid quite a lot), I decided to buy him a very simple mobile phone, for the sole purpose of being able to dial 999. The phone is a lot cheaper, very much faster and it gives us both peace of mind. I'd never get another "personal alarm" unless it came with a guarantee that someone will answer straight away and he'd get assistance within a sensible time.

Your council will supply them at a cost, it usually includes a key safe outside. My friend wears a tracker which also connect to her daughters phone so they can check on her all the time. You can set the boundaries yourself, if you find them too intruding, but she does not mind, she says better safe than sorry.

If you had a couple of Alexa devices you could “ make an announcement “ which would go through to any connected devices in the house.

Age UK has quite a good section on them. my late fil had a wrist and neck pendant which was linked to a central call station who would call the nominated person to check on them. it was a monthly fee but not a lot

You can program a smart speaker to call a phone number if you verbally tell it to. If you fall you can just shout at it. Useful if the responser was away from home when something happened.

There are a few on Amazon that say "Alert button to call family" they are around the £30 mark.
I have used them so not sure if they are any good.

A friend of mine recently bought an alarm watch from YourStride and is very pleased with it.
It’s neat and has GPS too.