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How smart tech is giving ageing prisoners a lifeline [theguardian.com]

Prisons and probation [theguardian.com] The prison where sensors and wristbands are saving lives, cutting hospital visits and reducing costs

Sarah Johnson [theguardian.com]

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Jim Lees woke up late one night needing to use the toilet. As he sat up in bed, he felt dizzy, then blacked out and fell to the floor.

He remembers: “Everything went blank. I fell and was unconscious. I don’t know how long I was out.” When Lees [not his real name], 80, did regain consciousness, he couldn’t get back up. “My foot wouldn’t grip the floor. There was blood and urine everywhere. I just don’t know what happened to me.”

It wasn’t until 6am the next morning that he was found on the floor of his cell by prison officers. “We had checked him at 11pm and he was fine. When I came in in the morning, he was slumped, and had injured his head,” says Mick Butler, custodial manager at HMP Wymott, [justice.gov.uk] in Leyland, Lancashire. Lees was taken to Preston hospital, where doctors discovered, and later removed, a cancerous tumour in his leg. He stayed for weeks, with a prison guard by his bed.

This was not the first time a man had been found collapsed on the floor in the morning. Prison staff were aware that situations such as these could have disastrous consequences, and taking prisoners to hospital was also a drain on resources, says Butler. “We needed a mechanism to let us know when someone had tripped or was in distress,” he says.

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