Safe as houses
by Hammersmith and Fulham Press Office
23/09/2008
Elderly and vulnerable adults in Hammersmith and Fulham are being given advice on how to stay safe in their own homes as part of a new joint police and council scheme.
The Met’s police support officers have been visiting homes across the borough as part of the Home Safe initiative, talking to residents about doorstep and personal safety, and about the ‘message in a bottle’ scheme.
The idea behind message in a bottle is simple - a sticker on the inside of the resident’s front door shows that they have signed up to the scheme and would direct emergency services, for example, to a matching sticker on the fridge. There, they can find details such as the person’s name, any medication they might be taking and next of kin details.
The Old Oak and College Park Safer Neighbourhood Team were the first to test-drive Home Safe in December last year, and since then have enrolled over 140 people on the scheme. It proved so successful that Home Safe was rolled out borough wide from March this year, across all of Hammersmith & Fulham’s 16 wards. Already the team have pinpointed around 100 people in each area to visit, with the hope of reaching 2,000 residents. These might be people who have meals on wheels or receive home care, or have been identified by community support officers as needing an extra someone to look out for them.
Annie Fisher, 85, lives alone and over the past two months has been visited regularly by PCSO Nikki Bowers, 37, of the College Park and Old Oak Safer Neighbourhood Team, who she calls her ‘little angel’. Annie was contacted after the council passed on her details to the police.
“Nikki came by two months ago and since then the ball has been rolling,” said Annie. “She is like a little angel - you have no idea was she has meant to me,”
“Since she came here I have had someone here asking what I suffer from and what help I need, like cleaning. And the message in a bottle scheme is really good too: if anything happens to me, anybody can go to the door of the fridge and see what kind of medication I take and know my name. I feel safe with it.”
Nikki said: “We get the names and addresses of the elderly and vulnerable residents from the council and then we visit them to ask if they want security help and to be part of the message in a bottle scheme.
“What I do is I basically go around and talk to them, help them with crime prevention, telling them not to answer the door to people they don’t know, to ask for ID instead, and make sure they have a working smoke alarm.”
Residents can be referred to the fire service which offers free smoke alarm checks, Careline which provides personal alarms and charity Bishop Creighton House, which can help fit home safety devices.
Ingrid Lawson runs a similar scheme at Bishop Creighton House called Keep Safe. It works on the same principle as Home Safe, helping vulnerable, disabled and elderly residents to stay safe at home, but offers free security fittings, installing locks, spy-holes and letter box grilles.
“We work very closely with the council, the safer neighbourhood teams and H&F Homes, particularly as almost 60 per cent of our clients are H&F Homes’ tenants,” said Ingrid.
“We have a turn-around of three to four days and see about 80 people a week. If one of our handymen goes out and meets a resident he feels is particularly vulnerable, he can then refer them to Home Safe and vice versa. It’s a great way to work together, especially as we all just want to help people.”
Greg Smith, cabinet member for crime and anti-social behaviour, said: “These schemes are wonderful proactive initiatives that help cut crime by stopping it from happening in the first place.
“Everyone should have the right to feel safe in their own homes, and this is especially important to the elderly and vulnerable.”
• If you are interested in registering for the Home Safe scheme, contact Marco Capitao on marco.capitao@lbhf.gov.uor 020 8753 2359.
• Contact Ingrid Lawson on ilawson@creightonhouse.org or 020 7385 9689 for more information about Keep Safe.
