GPS plan to monitor dementia sufferers

VULNERABLE adults could be electronically tagged in order to cut the number of people who go missing.

Dementia sufferers, adults with learning difficulties and drug addicts could all be monitored by satellite under proposals for a missing person prevention scheme to include ‘all adults at risk’.

The calls came at a meeting hosted by Police Scotland yesterday to update local authorities on a pilot project using the technology.

Police have worked with 13 care homes in the Lothians and Scottish Borders, Greater Glasgow and Argyll and West Dunbartonshire.

Risk assessments of the most vulnerable residents and the use of monitoring equipment were implemented this summer, and since then no residents at any of the care homes have gone missing.

Council leaders, territorial police divisions, care home managers and government representatives were so encouraged by the progress, they called for Police Scotland to broaden the scope of the project.

Chief Inspector James Royan, leading the pilot project, said there was growing interest in the use of GPS tracking technology to protect a wide range of vulnerable groups.

He said: ‘We potentially could look at people with learning difficulties, mental health problems, addiction problems, as well as dementia and Alzheimer’s.

‘All of these things might lead to people becoming at greater risk of harm than if they didn’t live with those kinds of conditions.’

The use of GPS technology to protect Scots was introduced in 2010, when a project funded by the Scottish Executive introduced tags, which sounded an alarm if the tagged person left an agreed area, in care homes.

The campaign group Big Brother Watch criticised the move at the time, and last night warned expansion could constitute a breach of privacy.

Daniel Nesbitt, research director of the organisation, said: ‘Informed consent must be obtained before any kind of GPS technology is used. If it isn’t, this idea has potential to become very invasive very quickly.’

Mr Royan said: ‘In terms of vulnerable missing persons, GPS devices are not that widely used at the moment. We would be very supportive of a wider roll-out, on a case-bycase basis involving the critical people, and informed consent is absolutely crucial.’

He added that GPS was ‘only one of the tactics within a wider menu’ that could reduce the level of vulnerability among those at risk of going missing.

The focus of the pilot project was on the protection of elderly people, particularly those with dementia, as they were identified as one of the groups most at risk.

Figures from Alzheimer’s Scotland show that 90,000 people in Scotland suffer from dementia. The Scottish Government has said that 40 per cent of those will go missing at some point in their lives.

Dr Maggie Ellis, a Fellow in Dementia Care at the University of St Andrews, said: ‘You have to be very careful with things like GPS, but if you have informed consent it is, of course, acceptable.

‘It can be a really useful way of keeping safe, and I am all for a wider adoption of GPS technology.’

Dr Ellis added that she would prefer the tags were used under a system of ‘rolling consent’.

A Scottish Government consultation on ‘working together for people who go missing in Scotland’ is due to finish next week.

There are plans to launch a National Missing Persons Strategy for Scotland as a result of this next year.

‘Informed consent absolutely crucial’