www.wanderingindementia.com is a UK-wide service for carers and professionals looking after people with memory loss who are at risk of getting lost.

We are a public/private partnership combining NHSInnovations South East, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust and FollowUs Holdings PLC.

NHS Innovations South East provides a service to improve healthcare by assisting NHS Innovators in the South East. Through its Innovation Manager, Dr Tahsin Choudhury, it facilitated the development of the service through a grant to support Proof of Concept work, through the award of a prize to this idea in an Innovation Competition in 2005, and through support in contractual negotiations.

Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health Partnership NHS provides specialist mental health services to people in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and the surrounding counties and highly specialist services to patients from across the UK. It supports innovations generated by its staff, such as the originator of www.wanderingindementia.com, Dr Rupert McShane, Consultant in Old Age Psychiatry.

FollowUs are one of the UK’s leading providers of low cost mobile phone and GPS tracking services for business and home users. Its GPS services are provided under the FollowGB brand. As technology develops, new devices are added to its portfolio, including those which connect with www.wanderingindementia.com.

Click here for background about www.wanderingindementia.com.

Click here for research about our forerunner and attitudes to electronic tracking and here for research about getting lost in dementia and here for a review about interventions for wandering in dementia.

Click here for excellent UK site about Assistive Technology in Dementia.

Click here for daily news about dementia and other useful resources.

Click here for Alzheimer’s Society fact sheet on wandering and here for the Alzheimer’s Society’s position (to be revised by end 2007) on electronic tracking.

Innovation

NHS Innovations South East (NISE) Innovation Award

Dr. McShane’s innovation for people with dementia was awarded a prize in the technology innovation category of NHS Innovations South East’s Innovation competition 2004. In October 2005, it featured in a DVD, commissioned by the Department of Health, which showcased the most promising innovations from the various ‘Innovation Hubs’.

Dr. Tahsin Choudhury
Innovation Manager, NHS Innovations South East.
September 2007