Dementia Safeguarding Scheme using NFC

Avon and Somerset Police’s Dementia Safeguarding Scheme provides vulnerable people with NFC wristbands to identify them and provide contact quickly if they get lost or go missing. The scheme was established in 2015 by sgt. Stuart King from Avon and Somerset Police, who runs this voluntarily.

Dementia is a generic term for a range of progressive conditions that affect the brain. Each type of dementia can affect someone’s ability to think, remember and speak. It progressively gets worse and they can get confused and forget things and people they know. It’s estimated that 1 in 3 people in the UK will develop dementia in their lifetime.

Seritag were approached by Avon and Somerset Police in 2020 to help with their ‘Dementia Safeguarding Scheme’.

How the scheme works

Police will collect data for a vulnerable individual in a form including their medication, photograph, next of kin contact details etc. This will be stored in the Police database. This national scheme provides a lanyard with a glow-in-the-dark NFC keycard, an NFC hang tag and an NFC wristband to said vulnerable person. They each have a QR code printed on them and they have all been encoded to store their name and next of kin. If your loved one goes missing, emergency service personnel can scan the tag and find the individuals name and next of kin. From there, they can access the police database and retrieve personal information about the missing person.

How the scheme is going

The scheme has been very successful and is now being trialled and released by a growing number of Police and Local Authorities around the UK. The project has also gained a lot of coverage in the press from BBC's Crimewatch, BBC News and NFCW. We are now working with more Police departments such as Argyll and Bute Scotland Police, Staffordshire Police, Lincolnshire Police and Surrey Police. The scheme has been providing reassurance to families and loved ones of those with dementia. So far, this is helping safeguard over 2,000 people living with dementia across Avon and Somerset alone.

If you know somebody that has dementia, you can simply register for the scheme here: https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/forms/dss