Personal Alarms for the Elderly in Ireland: The HSE, the Seniors Alert Scheme, and Your Options

If you've been searching for "HSE personal alarm", here's the honest answer straight away: the HSE doesn't run a national personal alarm scheme. The free alarm scheme that most people are actually looking for is the Seniors Alert Scheme, which is run by Pobal for the Department of Rural and Community Development. It's a great scheme, and it's worth understanding what it does and doesn't do before you decide what your family needs.

The free option: the Seniors Alert Scheme

If your parent is 65 or over, has limited means, and lives alone (or alone for much of the day), the Seniors Alert Scheme will provide a monitored personal alarm free of charge. The pendant or wristband connects to a 24-hour monitoring centre. Press the button, and a real person answers and gets help moving.

The equipment and installation are free, monitoring is free for the first year, and after that it costs roughly €70 a year. You apply through a local registered community group rather than to Pobal directly, and a family member can start the process. If your parent qualifies, apply. It costs nothing and it works.

What a button alarm can't do

Every device in this category, including the scheme pendants, depends on one thing: the person pressing the button.

That's fine for a lot of situations. But talk to any family who's been through a bad fall and you'll hear the same story: the fall happened, and the button didn't get pressed. Because the person was knocked unconscious. Because the shock and confusion took over. Because the pendant was on the bedside table. Because they "didn't want to bother anyone" and lay there for hours waiting to feel better.

Irish and international studies of older people who fall at home keep finding the same thing: a large share of wearers never press their alarm when they actually fall. The button only works when the person is able and willing to use it.

Where fall detection comes in

A fall detection watch approaches the problem from the other direction: instead of waiting for a button press, the watch senses the fall itself and raises the alert automatically. The person doesn't have to do anything, which is precisely the point, because "can't do anything" is the scenario you're buying protection for.

That's what we build at Norse. Our watch detects falls and alerts your family straight away, with the wearer's location. It also does the quiet, everyday things a pendant can't: your family can see that all is well from their own phones, the watch works outside the house and in the garden, not just within range of a base unit, and an SOS button is still there for the moments when your parent wants to call for help themselves.

We'll be equally honest about the other side: no fall detection technology, ours or anyone's, catches every single fall, and we say so plainly rather than promising miracles. What it removes is the dependence on a frightened, hurt, or unconscious person pressing a button. That's the gap that matters.

So what should your family do?

• If cost is the main barrier: apply for the Seniors Alert Scheme. Free is free, and a monitored button is far better than nothing.
• If falls are the specific worry: if there's already been a fall, or balance is going, or your parent lives alone and you lie awake wondering, a fall detection watch covers the exact situations a button can't. Some families run both: the scheme pendant in the house, the watch on the wrist.
• Whatever you choose, choose something worn. An alarm in a drawer protects nobody. Pick the device your parent will actually keep on.

If you'd like to see how our watch and family app work, have a look at how Norse works. Or read our plain-English guide to how fall detection actually works.

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Norse Watches is an Irish company. We test everything on our own family first, and we'd rather tell you the truth about what technology can and can't do than win a sale on a promise we can't keep.