Southwark Carers staff make sure Carers know where to get support in an emergency.

We help Carers to prepare an emergency plan and provide a Message in a Bottle kit to help if emergency services ever have to come to your home.

Emergency Plan

Carers are encouraged to use our template to make an Emergency Plan. Have you ever worried about what would happen if you suddenly could not be there for the person you support and care for?

For example you could have an accident and be unable to get home or you might find you need to go into hospital at short notice.

• Who would you contact in an emergency?
• Where are your keys kept?
• How would someone else know the needs of the person you support?
• Do you keep lists of medicines needed by the person you care for?
• If you have a plan for an emergency, whop knows about it?

All these details can written down in advance and kept in a safe place – it may not prevent an emergency but it could give you peace of mind.

The Emergency Plan Template would be useful in all sorts of circumstances – It takes some time to complete, but we can assist you. Oce it is finished it is easy to show someone else essential information about the person you support and your individual situation.

Message In a Bottle

The Message In a Bottle scheme is a simple idea designed to encourage people to keep their personal and medical details on a standard form and in a common location – the fridge.

The bottle is kept in the fridge, where the emergency services will be able to find it in the event of being called to your home. They will know you have a bottle by the two labels displayed on the inside of the front door or on the main entrance to your home and the other is for the door of your fridge. It will save the Emergency Services valuable time identifying you and your emergency contacts, whether you have special medication or allergies or not, it is a potential lifesaver and provides peace of mind to users and their friends and families.

Message in a Bottle kits are free and can be collected from the Southwark Carers Centre or from our Carers Health Worker teams at events.

You can complete an emergency template online here. We will keep a copy and print and return one to you. Please inform anybody that you name in the plan of where it is kept.