Jennifer Salford lives in the same Oxfordshire village as her mother, who is now very forgetful. She carries most of the responsibility for the practical caring as her brother, Alan, lives and works in Italy. Oxfordshire County Council offered the family a Just Checking system and it was Alan who saw its potential for the family.

An academic, Alan works at a computer for much of the day, so he stays logged on and ‘just checks’ several times a day that his mother’s patterns of activity are as expected. He knows when Jenny tends to go round, and other outings and arrangements that are made for his mother, so he was able to spot when his mother was not moving around as normal. He alerted Jenny, who went round to the house to find her mother had in fact fallen. The timely response helped Jenny and Alan’s mother to recover quickly. Alan explains ……

“Jenny carries the brunt of the caring, but this system means I can play a part in supporting mum, and take some of the pressure off Jenny, who knows there is someone else also keeping an eye on mum.”