Dear Resident,

We have an uplifting story to share this morning as one of our first ecops messages of 2025.

Thank you to the worried driver who called us at just after 4pm on Friday last week (27 December) after spotting an elderly woman wandering around outside Bottisham Village College. 

The woman noticed the lady appeared cold and confused, was trying to get into people’s cars and said she would walk ‘home’ to Lowestoft.

When asked, the lady couldn’t remember how old she was but believed she was around 14 and still went to school. Checks revealed the woman suffers with dementia and was a resident at a nearby care home.

We’d like to thank the passerby for her quick thinking, kindness and compassion after spotting something didn’t seem quite right, and offering to take time out from her day to make sure the woman was safe.

We visited the area, took the woman back to her care home and highlighted the Herbert Protocol to staff there. Have you heard of it? It’s a scheme we support that can help find people with dementia if they go missing.

It encourages family and friends to keep a document that will help officers in the event a loved one goes missing by collating key pieces of information, such as a physical description, familiar places, health details and an up-to-date photo.

Feel free to share this post and help spread the word about this important scheme. For more information or to download a Herbert Protocol form, visit our dedicated web page.
 

Kind regards,