Residents at St Mary's Court, a sheltered housing scheme in West Malling, visited
Invicta Telecare's busy monitoring centre to take a peek behind the scenes to see first hand how
the lifesaving service responds to alarm calls.
The visit was the idea of a resident attending a Russet Homes Sheltered Scheme Forum who was
curious to know what happened after an alarm cord is pulled or a lifeline pendant pressed. Each of
the 11 sheltered schemes owned by Russet Homes offer residents a range of pull cord alarms, alarm
sensors - such as smoke detectors, flood detectors - and a lifeline pendant which are monitored by
Invicta Telecare.
Following an interesting presentation the residents sat alongside trained Telecare operators to
watch them in action. It gave them the opportunity to ask questions and see how the 24 hour service
works, what type of calls they receive and how the alarm calls are handled. Most of the group had
pressed their own pendant at home in the past when they needed help and were interested to meet the
friendly 'voices' who helped them.
On the day of the visit Invicta Telecare operators answered 3,773 calls. In the last year they
have responded to over 1,252,000 calls and an impressive 99% were answered within 60 seconds. Many
calls are from people who have fallen or feel unwell, others can be triggered by smoke alarm
detectors which have gone off providing an early warning of a fire and some are from people who
simply need friendly re-assurance.
Melanie McAdam, Russet Homes Resident Involvement Officer who runs the Forum which meets every
two months and organised the visit, said: "The group just couldn't believe how many calls the
operators received and how busy they were. They were impressed by how they responded quickly to the
wide range of calls keeping calm and a sense of humour in what is often very stressful
situations.
"We always welcome any suggestions from our residents particularly if it helps them to become
involved and find out more about our services. We plan to help the Forum to set up a dedicated team
who will put forward ideas for future trips and help organise them on behalf of all residents
living in our sheltered housing schemes."
Group partner Russet Homes own and manage over 6,600 properties within Tonbridge & Malling
and share the same main office as Invicta Telecare at Borough Green.