All the person has to do is to press, before a time agreed with him or her, an 'I am okay' button on a special landline or mobile phone handset that can also be used normally to make calls.
By the application of 'lean' design, the process of Safety Confirmation is conceptually simple,[1] especially for people who use it but, as it has to be highly dependable and work reliably over different providers' phone networks, the technology that runs it is complex.
Conventionally, people who may be prone to falling or medical emergencies are provided with a button to press if they need help, which raises a call to a monitoring centre (as in the famous US TV advertisement "Help, I've Fallen and I Can't Get up").
A study reported in 2010 found that only 8% of people with pendant alarms wore them at all times and that two-thirds had never used them.
Safety confirmation systems have been on sale in the UK since at least 2005[4] and is used by local councils as part of their preventative telecare strategy.