Hello and welcome to my 4th technology blog, my aim is to highlight companies that provide services through telehealth and telecare with digital devices, today I would like to showcase TASK Community Care and the wide variety of supports they have in place to support older people to remain in their own homes.
TASK Community Care is a wholly owned Irish company, in operation since 1974. As Ireland’s longest established provider of personal monitored alarms and telecare, they provide 24-hour assistance, to tens of thousands of older and vulnerable customers nationwide and also across the UK.
In addition, TASK supplies an extensive range of other assistive technologies, including personal location trackers, and specialised ‘passive monitoring systems’ for people with dementia or other high support needs.
The products and monitoring service provided by TASK ensure that older and vulnerable people, can live independently in their own homes for as long as possible. In addition, the systems provide great peace of mind to family members and loved ones of those requiring this extra support. Operating from a purpose-built monitoring centre in County Meath, the company employs and trains call-centre operators from the local area, and also has a team of dedicated area representatives throughout the country. Their CareLink™ monitoring centre is now one of the leading and most advanced multi-protocol centres of its kind in the UK and Europe.
The company also has industry leading call response times, for instance having answered 99.9% of emergency calls within 20 seconds during 2021. All telecare units provided by TASK are future-proofed, to ensure they work with digital broadband phone-lines, as well as with ‘analogue’ land-lines. This is important as Irish government communications regulator, ComReg, has indicated that analogue lines will be made obsolete in the coming years. This means TASK customers will not need to worry about purchasing a completely new telecare system, when upgrading from an analogue to digital phone-line. TASK also provides ‘GSM’ units with SIM cards for homes with no phone-lines, ensuring everyone can access help at the touch of a button when they need it most. To ensure the safety of all customers and in line with best practice, only multinetwork SIMs are used in TASK units. This means if one network provider (such as Vodafone, Virgin Media or Eir Mobile) is down, another stronger network can be used to call for help. Unlike SIM cards that use only one network provider, this ensures that the customer is guaranteed a much higher level of protection, which is central to what TASK has been in the business of doing for over 45 years.
In addition to their extensive private customer base, TASK is also an official provider of equipment to the HSE, County Councils and under the Irish government’s ‘Seniors Alert Scheme’. The ‘Seniors Alert Scheme’ provides grant support for the supply of personal pendant alarms for those aged 65 and over, to enable them to continue to live securely in their homes. Currently the equipment is free, with monitoring of the alarm also free for the first year. The grant assistance is made available through community and voluntary groups registered with Pobal. TASK can also be contacted for further details about the scheme.
A selection of assistive technology and telecare devices provided by TASK are outlined below: PERSONAL ALARM BUTTON (SOCIALLY MONITORED ALARM) The personal alarm button is the most basic type of telecare provided by TASK and consists of an emergency button (worn as a pendant or wristband) and a base unit. The base unit is the central part of any telecare system, and connects to the 24-hour monitoring centre once the personal alarm button is activated. The button can be pressed any time, during the day or at night, in any situation when a person needs help at home and cannot reach a telephone.
Trained operators at the County Meath monitoring centre can then ensure appropriate assistance is provided. This could be by calling a family member or other nominated person, or in more urgent situations, the emergency services will be contacted to attend. TASK’s personal alarm buttons have a range of 300 meters (free field) meaning they can be worn in the home but often will often work in the garden or around the home too.
How to contact TASK Community Care
Further information on TASK Community Care can be found on their website at www.taskltd.ie, by emailing or by calling their office during business hours on 01 8435889 / 01 8435901.
For more information, please see the information of documents from TASK below.
AIM SOLUTION Product Focus
PEP (Personal Emergency Pendant)
PIP Brochure
TASK Care Link
TASK Community Care Doc
TASK Lone Worker Protect (LWP) GPS Watch v.2
TASK Standalone Products Poster
TASK Telecare Poster