By Cllr Greg Peck

Those who have read my previous articles will know that, being on the Adult Social Care Committee at County Hall and a member of the Norfolk Safeguarding Adults Board, I have great interest in supporting vulnerable adults.

One of our strategies is to encourage people to be independent and live at home as long as they can. To enable this we have been looking at assistive technology, which is a range of gadgets that can help people live independently in their own homes.

These include such things as sensors/detectors that link to a monitoring centre via a rented “pendant” alarm; for example, smoke, low temperature, falls and property exit sensors.

There are also Global Positioning System (GPS) location devices that use a mobile network to raise an alert to a carer or monitoring centre.

In addition there are triggers/sensors that can support a person or their carer in and around the home, such as pendant buttons, door contacts or motion sensors linked to a pager.

This service is for adults over 18 years living in their own home (this excludes residential/care homes).

The assistive technology team will carry out an assessment to see if someone could benefit from having any electronic gadgets that could help them to stay independent and/or provide support for their carer.

The assessment is free and many of the gadgets are available on free loan. As part of the assessment they might suggest some other gadgets not provided by them, but which might be useful. The person carrying out the assessment will be able to suggest where these can be purchased.

If you or someone you know could benefit from this scheme, contact Norfolk County Council’s Customer Service Centre and ask for a referral to the assistive technology team. Tel: 0344 800 8020 or email: information@norfolk.gov.uk

Cllr Greg Peck, Norfolk County Council, Reepham Division
Tel: 07972 230282
Email: greg.peck.cllr@norfolk.gov.uk