Andrew Geach has installed CCTV in Shedfield Lodge care home with successful results (Image: Steve Reigate )
The move would see staff not needing to call 999 every time a resident suffers an unwitnessed fall. One home boss said he has saved the NHS £50,000 this year by installing CCTV as he has not had to summon ambulances on all but three of 119 occasions. If this pattern was replicated in all 11,300 UK care homes it would equal a potential saving of more than £1million a day. Andrew Geach, who runs Shedfield Lodge Care Home in Southampton, said: "It's a mind-blowing figure but it's real money which could be ploughed back into social care. Most who suffer unwitnessed falls end up coming back to homes in the early hours with no injuries at all. With safety monitoring, everyone wins." Protocol requires care homes to call an ambulance, every time there is an unwitnessed fall because it could lead to a potentially serious head injury.
Each time it has cost taxpayers around £420. The expense does not include time spent in hospital and the care provided.
Shedfield Lodge installed 21 cameras covering all communal areas, exits and outside areas.
Mr Geach, who is backing a push by Care Campaignfor the Vulnerable for a new law to make CCTV compulsory in
