The failure of a personal safety alarm system to live up to the supplier’s promises has seen care home operator, Millennium Care, replace it with a Pinpoint Staff Personal Safety Alarm System at its Sunnyborough facility near Goole in yorkshire, a specialised care home for adults with conditions ranging from autism to learning difficulties, and with ‘very complex needs and extremely challenging backgrounds’.
Rachel Blackburn, head of Care Homes for Millennium Care, said: “Many residents are prone to very challenging behaviour, which can expose staff to assault from (‘usually unintentional’) outbursts of violent activity. Staff need to be able to covertly summon help immediately to de-escalate difficult situations, and equally to be able to summon a ‘crash team’ in a non-emergency situation, either due to a threat to staff or other residents, or in a patient health emergency. In both instances, the alarm needs to be raised from a person-worn device because often the ‘threat’ could physically be in between the staff member and a wall-mounted call button.”
She continued: “In 2013, on opening Sunnyborough, we installed a staff personal safety alarm system, but it proved awful – staff would pull the alarm but sometimes nothing happened. With help thus not arriving, our staff got assaulted.” Having worked fruitlessly with the manufacturer for nearly three years ‘to try make the system work’, Millennium recognised it must replace it. With its MD having seen the Pinpoint system in action, it investigated it, ‘and found nothing but positive experiences from its many users’. It was installed ‘with no fuss’ – including a modification to the requirement part-way through to accommodate a new extension.
Rachel Blackburn said: “With the Pinpoint system we’ve had not a single instance when it hasn’t raised the alarm. Our staff finally feel perfectly safe – they know that their body-worn personal infrared transmitter will summon help immediately every time.” This is in an environment where residents with challenging behaviour ‘probably generate five incidents per week when staff need to use their PIT to summon urgent assistance’.
“Thankfully,” Rachel Blackburn added, “due to the Pinpoint system’s reliability and speed, most such incidents now only require ‘help to de-escalate’ alarms. True emergency calls are much less frequent, but when they do happen, Pinpoint raises the alarm via audible alarms, graphic displays in strategic locations, and flashing overdoor lights in the corridor outside the room – all combining to ensure the crash team gets to the correct room within seconds. This means less danger to our staff, less for our other residents, and – because situations can be defused more quickly – far less likelihood of the other residents becoming disturbed.”