 Hello, Mrs. Pitchford, are you all right? I'm very pleased to hear it. Well, I hope you have a nice afternoon. Thank you for calling us. Bye-bye. Just one of the 2,000 emergency calls handled every day by the well-being contact centre in Sussex. This elderly couple, both in their 90s, can use the communication pendants worn around their necks to summon help at the touch of a button. This is a reconstruction of a recent event in which this lady suffered a serious fall and needed urgent help. She couldn't reach the normal telephone, but that didn't matter. The well-being system came to her rescue. By pressing this pendant button, she triggers an automatic call to one of the operators. Hello, Mrs. Wood, you're through tomorrow in that lifeline. Is everything OK? No, I'm on the floor. I'm able to get up and my lesson can... Have you been injured or are you bleeding? No, I'm shot. A little bit of blood on my head, but nothing much. OK, Mrs. Wood, we'll get the paramedics for you. I'll come back and speak to you again in a moment. The joint commissioning team in West Sussex, headed by Sam Tull, says the well-being service is proving a huge benefit to elderly and housebound people in their local authority area. I think the main thing is a feeling of reassurance. I mean, I guess I would liken it a bit to like your breakdown cover for your car. You're delighted when you don't use it, but you know it's there when you do use it. So someone, either an individual or a couple, who may be, you know, elderly or vulnerable in some other way, living at home, it means that they have the reassurance that if something happens, they know that they can call for help instantly. For this couple, the well-being lifeline service is now an essential part of their daily lives. It's enabled them to stay together in their own home. They have smoke detectors and other devices linked to the system, which can summon help automatically at any time of the day or night. Well, lifeline's been a godsend, you know. The ambulance comes in 10, 15 minutes and you're all right. And I press that red button there and left it, and then we get a message from where it's connected and stand up the message and told them that I'd had a phone and they'd be here as quick as I can. In West Sussex, people assessed as being at possible risk because of age or incapacity are being offered a free trial of the lifeline service for up to three months. West Sussex County Council have developed what we call a 13-week hospital avoidance initiative. This is where we will fund telecare, emergency alarm and any additional equipment that's needed into a person's home for up to 13 weeks. Now, the aim of this is to either allow someone to be discharged from hospital earlier or to prevent the admission altogether. A wide range of professionals including social workers, occupational therapists, nurses and other hospital discharge staff can make a referral to well-being. It's a very simple referral process in which the professional would indicate that equipment and level of support service would be needed. Well-being will then install the equipment and the person will be connected to the monitoring centre. During a 13-week trial period, users of the West Sussex lifeline service can benefit from some of this vast array of sensory equipment and alarm systems that can be installed in a customer's home. With this unit here, the telehealth one, that has their health in the morning, so it saves the nurses going to visit the client every day. So when it does flag up an issue with them, then they could visit when and if required. These devices, known as assistive technology, provide reassurance both for the individual using lifeline and also for relatives and friends who can be safe in the knowledge that even an unexpected movement in the home will trigger an alert. It gives them confidence and peace of mind because they know at the press of a button, one of the pendants, they will get assistance within 45 minutes, probably even less, so they know they're not on their own. And even if the user has to pay for the service, him or herself, it costs little more than the price of a television licence.