Help on being prepared

Being prepared for the unexpected is always a good idea as a carer. It helps to think about things like which family members, friends and neighbours could help in an emergency. This could be in case you experience a sudden illness or accident, or if you are delayed in getting to the person who you help. 

A Carer Back Up Plan is a really useful document where you put all the information about your caring role in one place. So should you be unable to care for whatever reason, it’s clear exactly what needs to be done if somebody else needs to take over. Having a plan can also help you feel less worried.

We have a Back Up Plan Form for you to use. It covers:

• Emergency contacts
• The tasks you do
• The needs and behaviours of the person you support
• Medication and Equipment

You can either choose to complete this and distribute it yourself, or you can submit it to us and we will share it with Adult Social Care, which will enable Emergency Services access to your plan, should this be required in the future.

See and complete our Carer Back Up Plan Document and submit it here.

Other ways to be prepared

A ‘Message in a Bottle’ scheme which provides a solution for storing basic personal and medical details, is run by your local Lions Club. This scheme is recognised by all the emergency services.

You may also want to consider a key safe for securely keeping a spare door key which can be accessed with a combination code.

‘In Case of Emegency’ (ICE)

‘ICE’ is a campaign started by a paramedic to help emergency staff quickly find who to contact. You can store the word ICE in your mobile phone address book with the number of the person you’d like people to contact, for example your back-up carer. If something happens to you, ambulance, police or hospital staff will look for the word ICE in your phone’s address book and call that person. If you have more than one person to contact in an emergency, you can list them as ICE1, ICE2, ICE3.

If your phone has a lock with a passcode, you can put ICE information on your phone’s ‘lock screen’. Your phone instruction manual will have information on how to do this, or you can visit this website, to find out more.