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 | You and Yours - Transcript ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 |
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| TX: 23.10.03 – COMMUNITY ALARMS - UPDATE |
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| PRESENTER: LIZ BARCLAY AND JOHN WAITE BARCLAY Well last month we reported on the story of Tessa and Basil Alexander. Basil, like one and a half million elderly and disabled people in the UK used what's known as a community alarm - a radio device worn round the neck. If he got into difficulties he could call for help simply by pressing a button. Eighty year old Basil had Parkinson's Disease but by having this device his wife could be out and about, confident that if he needed to he could immediately call for assistance. WAITE The alarm was expensive - £400 - but because it was an aid call system from Age Concern Enterprises, the commercial arm of the well known charity, Tessa and Basil thought they were paying for peace of mind. But then, one day when Tessa was out shopping, disaster struck as she told Will Yates. TESSA ALEXANDER On the way home my stepson rang me and said: I've had a phone call from Age Call that Dad was - some problem with his equipment. YATES In fact Tessa's stepson David had originally got a call saying Basil was in great distress. But when he called back to say his father wasn't answering the phone he was given a very different message, as this original recording of the call shows. TELEPHONE CALL Apparently there's something wrong with the unit there, that's why we can't hear him very well. Right. So we're going to make a report and have somebody come and see the unit and I do believe he was testing. Right. So he's alright. Okay. WAITE But Basil was not alright, he was having a heart attack. Something he told Tessa he'd explained to the Aid Call operator. BARCLAY Tessa was deeply unhappy about the way Aid Call had handled the emergency and rang the company to complain. A few days later the managing director of Aid Call came to see the couple with a transcript of Basil's original call for help. But after the visit Tessa was confused because the transcript didn't include the words "heart attack" anywhere. WAITE By now the matter was in the hands of Aid Call's insurance company, Royal and Sun Alliance. Tessa asked them for a tape of Basil's conversation, they refused but later sent her a second transcript. Tessa didn't leave it there though, she eventually did manage to get an actual tape of the call from Age Concern Enterprises - the company which owns Aid Call. TAPE FROM AID CALL Mr Alexander can you hear me? I'm having a heart attack. TESSA ALEXANDER The day I received the tape from him I received a transcript from the Royal and Sun Alliance. The tape had the words heart attack, spoken by my husband on two occasions, the transcript did not have the words on it at all. WAITE So despite that obvious inconsistency the insurance company was still insisting that the words "heart attack" had never been mentioned. BARCLAY Tessa and Basil were eventually offered £1800 by the insurance company and negligence was admitted with a further acknowledgement from Aid Call that they had got it badly wrong. Basil's health gradually deteriorated and he died in June. Because the matter was in the hands of the insurance company in September, when we originally reported the story, Age Concern told us that they weren't able to talk to us. But now they can and Neil Churchill is their director of communications. Neil Churchill why was Basil Alexander's son told his father was only testing the alarm, when in fact he was in great distress? CHURCHILL This is a very distressing case, I think there were three mistakes which were made. The first mistake was that there was confusion between two operators who were both speaking to Mr Alexander's son, as a result of some incorrect tracking or failure to read tracking correctly. The second mistake was when we rang Mrs Alexander before trying to speak to someone, we didn't leave a message on her mobile phone voicemail, which we were supposed to do. And the third mistake was that we should have asked her son to call in on Mr Alexander and we didn't do that, we left him agreeing to actually make a telephone call. And we're very sorry that these mistakes occurred. We are - we have reviewed procedures, we haven't achieved the high standards which we set ourselves in this case. BARCLAY Well if we go back to the point about the words heart attack. Regardless of whether they were clearly audible to the operator, they were actually clearly audible on the tape, but regardless of whether the operator heard them, any reading of that call suggests that Mr Alexander was in great distress, so why was an ambulance not called? CHURCHILL Well the operator didn't understand what Mr Alexander was saying and did ask him to repeat himself and at the end did ask what he wanted us to do and he asked us to call his wife, which was the action which was then taken. Now with hindsight that was the wrong thing to do, an ambulance should have been called. At the time with the confusion about what he was saying the wealth of experience that did exist in the call centre the operator believed that was the right course of action to take. BARCLAY Why did the original transcript then omit the words heart attack? CHURCHILL For the same reason, that the operator who hadn't understood what was being said at the time, that same reason applied when the transcript was being written up. It's actually quite hard to hear without being enhanced, which was subsequently done. So they didn't hear that point and they didn't write in the transcripts. BARCLAY And then, why then continue to insist that the original transcript was a verbatim report of the tape and why did Mrs Alexander not - why was she - herrequest for a tape refused? CHURCHILL Well the tape was given to Mrs Alexander, I think … BARCLAY Eventually. CHURCHILL .. the key point is - that's right - the key point is that the tape is the key record of what was actually said and the tape was immediately passed to our insurance company who then proceeded on that basis. I think the tape was then passed on to Mrs Alexander, it was too late, it should have been given to her much earlier than it was but the tape is a key record not the transcript. BARCLAY Mrs Alexander and her MP say the family has been consistently lied to and treated shabbily - what's Age Concern's response? CHURCHILL I think very unhappy that if Mrs Alexander feels that way I think clearly we should have communicated with her much better, we tried to do so, we've obviously failed to do so. But I think immediately we did admit that mistakes were made, immediately we did say that she was entitled to compensation. BARCLAY How can you ensure this doesn't happen to anyone else? CHURCHILL Well Aid Call is a very effective service, it's been going for 23 years, we meet a quality standard which is ahead of what the industry requires us to meet in terms of response times, we handle 400,000 calls a year successfully. What we have done though is we've rigorously looked at all our procedures and we've made sure that all our staff are fully aware of the procedures to ensure that this mistake cannot happen again. BARCLAY Neil Churchill thank you. WAITE Well Tessa Alexander was listening to that and she joins us now on the telephone. What is yourresponse to what Neil has said? TESSA ALEXANDER Well I'm glad that eventually somebody from Age Concern is prepared to actually talk to somebody. We've - I've tried to approach to trustees and got no joy with them. I'm shocked that Aid Call, Age Concern and the Royal and Sun Alliance continually lied to us, fobbed us off. But I think the most important thing now is that my husband can never be brought back but that legislation is brought in so that Aid Call and companies like them must be called to account when things go wrong because the public must be better protected. WAITE Well Age Concern is coming to see you next week Tessa, what do you hope will be accomplished? TESSA ALEXANDER Well I want to be reassured that they've put their house in order, that's the main thing. But more importantly it's about the future and the protection of the vulnerable in society to get protection for them with legislation. WAITE Tessa Alexander thank you very much indeed. Back to the You and Yours homepage The ´óÏó´«Ã½ is not responsible for external websites |
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