North Wales Police in partnership with Conwy County Borough Council are “piloting” a new Missing Adults Protocol (known as The Herbert Protocol) with the aim to ‘save minutes and lives’ when people living within Residential and/or Nursing Care Homes go missing
The scheme, named after a former soldier who suffered from dementia, will be piloted in Care Homes across Conwy and there are plans for it to be rolled out across North Wales.
Under the scheme, family members or carers will be asked to fill in an ‘adult at risk’ person profile about their loved one, which includes information such as their name, date of birth, habits and access to transport.
The form is designed to help police officers access important information which could help locate a missing person living within a care home as soon as possible.
Chris Walker (Adult Safeguarding Coordinator, Conwy County Borough Council) said: “We have a rare situation in that we have a new pilot initiative, but that in reality we don’t actually want to use it. What I mean by this is that we hope people don’t go missing, but if they do we need to be able to find them as quickly as possible. If we can save minutes we can save lives. It’s also about helping their families and friends should they themselves as reporting someone missing is in itself a very stressful situation”.
“At this distressing time families or friends may struggle to remember information or they may even make errors and provide the wrong details. Giving them the chance to write down the information in advance will hopefully ease the pressure they may feel and provide them with some reassurances at a difficult time’.
As part of National Safeguarding Week (14-18 November), two awareness raising workshops will be held on the morning of the 14 November at Venue Cymru, Llandudno to launch the scheme.
The first workshop will be for care home providers from 9.30am – 11am
The second workshop will be for multi-agency professionals form 11.30am – 1pm
To book a place at the workshop please e-mail Social.ServicesTraining@conwy.gov.uk
