News from Alertacall plus articles and insights on how to enhance outcomes for people with higher needs in the housing, health and social care sectors.
Housing 2025
Alertacall is returning to one of the biggest events in the housing calendar, Housing 2025!
The UK housing sector will come together on 24 – 26 June 2025 at Manchester Central for Housing 2025 and the Alertacall team will be on stand F33 – the same stand as last year – to demonstrate how housing providers can have better two-way engagement with their customers through Alertacall’s award-winning technology and proactive human contact.
Our CEO and Founder, James Batchelor MBE, will also be taking to the Insight stage on day 1 of the event, Tuesday 24th June at 12:30pm to discuss ‘Delivering Transformational Change through Outstanding Customer and Stakeholder Engagement’. The session will be chaired by Matt Baird of The Social Housing Round Table and James will be joined by Robin Roberts from Sutton Housing Society and Christine Candlish from Places for People.
Meet the Panel
Robin Roberts, Chief Executive at Sutton Housing Society, a small-registered provider in south London. In 2024, they were named UKHA best older peoples’ landlord, recognised as a Sunday Times best places to work 2024 and achieved Investors in People Gold. Their overall TSM is 95% and despite their size they have become one of London’s largest airspace developers transforming their homes. Robin is fellow of the RIBA and RICS.
Christine Candlish, Director of Living Plus at Places for People has worked in social housing for over 30 years, and has a particular interest in supported housing, rural affordable housing and community based provision. As Director of Living Plus, the supported housing arm of Places for People, she leads strategic and operational delivery across a national portfolio of supported housing, retirement living, and extra care services. Christine believes that good quality, affordable housing is about more than buildings but that it provides the foundation for health, wellbeing and independence.
Christine also has over 20 years experience of school governance.
Matt Baird, Founder of the Social Housing Round Table has specialised in recruiting for and supporting the Social Housing sector across the UK for many organisations. Aiding registered social landlords, local authorities, charities, developers and investment businesses, Matt has always understood the importance of the relationship between social purpose and commerciality.
Supporting businesses aiding the homeless, the elderly, young people leaving care, anyone with mental health needs or learning difficulties, Matt genuinely cares about the businesses he supports because of the value they give back. From front-line customer service, maintenance and teams of assistants through to Heads and Directors of Services, Project Managers and niche specialisms, Matt will ensure he delivers on what individual client’s needs are at every turn.
James Batchelor MBE, CEO and Founder of Alertacall has dedicated the last two decades to using technology and a specially trained, caring team to help housing providers have better two-way contact with older people.
The company’s first ever customer was James’ own gran, Eveline, and today tens of thousands of customers use Alertacall’s products to keep them safe, connected and informed every day.
In the exhibition hall, we will be demonstrating Alertacall’s core services: Housing Proactive, Beyond Warden Call and OKEachDay®
Designed to help housing providers manage accommodation for older and higher-needs people, Housing Proactive combines two-way digital engagement, self-service and proactive human contact. It helps housing providers better know their customers and properties.
Included is an easy-to-use portable touchscreen, that comes with multi-network 4G connectivity which goes into the homes of older and higher-needs people. Housing providers can exchange text, image and video communications with this and customers can report repairs, anti-social behaviour, manage their account and even complete surveys, such as Tenant Satisfaction Measures.
Human contact is also available each day – customers press OKEachDay® to confirm occupancy and pick up important messages, otherwise, a skilled team can call them to confirm their housing needs are met, helping to discover valuable insights and prevent undiscovered deaths.
Teams can see engagements with online reporting and the system can be integrated into back-end systems, e.g. so that a survey goes automatically to a customer after a repair.
Discrete condensation, damp and mould sensors are also available, with up to 5 years battery life. These connect to the touchscreen to detect conditions that may lead to damp and mould, with on-screen prompts and calls to encourage better habits.
The touchscreen can also be used for video door entry calls, allowing housing providers to replace older and failing hard-wired systems with a wire-free solution. Used with Alertacall’s separate digital telecare alarm, this allows housing providers to go beyond old-fashioned warden call systems in sheltered housing (see Beyond Warden Call below).
Replacing and digitising a warden call system is now easier than it ever has been before.
Beyond Warden Call is an easier, simpler and lower-cost ‘warden call’ comprising a portable touchscreen, video door entry, digital telecare and smoke alarm integration.
It can typically be installed more quickly, and more easily than a traditional ‘hard-wired’ warden call system and with less resident disruption. Commercial-grade WiFi is also available for those housing providers who truly want to digitise their offering to their customers.
Our portable touchscreen has a range of digital engagement options (see Housing Proactive above) and is more convenient for receiving door entry calls than a wall-mounted device, because it’s typically easier for the customer to reach.
Our telecare devices are reliable, low-cost to maintain, and can signal using dual multi-network 4G SIM cards and WiFi; they also have 24+ hour backup batteries.
The video door entry panel is a secure IP system, which can be accessed using fobs, codes and more. It has concierge options, remote management via the cloud and creates an audit trail of visitors.
The system is well established, monitored by a range of monitoring centres and uses industry-standard protocols such as SCAIP.
OKEachDay® is an optional contact service which can be optimised for housing and personal use and is available on a range of Alertacall devices including our portable touchscreen.
It helps to create a powerful anchor of connection with customers, track occupancy, confirm housing needs are being met, discover valuable insights and prevent undiscovered deaths.
Customers are given the choice to engage with the OKEachDay® button in their own time to confirm occupancy (e.g. daily or weekly) or otherwise receive a call from a specially trained team at a chosen time, who are available 365 days a year.
Action can be taken if there is reason to believe a property or person is at risk – this can be tailored to meet the needs of housing providers and their customers.
Every interaction is logged and recorded, which lets housing providers see patterns that might indicate a customer issue. Staff, friends and family, or even emergency services can be contacted if a critical risk is detected. Team members can view interactions with customers via secure online reporting and use this data to focus their time.
To book your free visitor ticket to Housing 2025, click here. If you would like to pre-book a demo with the Alertacall team, get in touch today.
We look forward to seeing you there!
