Helplines are available for any elderly or disabled person who needs assistance. Clients are hooked up to a call centre 24 hours a day, and can dial up by just pressing a button which is either hung around their neck or attached to a bracelet or watch. All calls are answered by a network of professionals who take the necessary measures to solve potential problems.

In Spain, the Instituto de Migraciones y Servicios Sociales (IMSERSO), together with the Federaci�n Espa�ola de Municipios y Provincias (FEMP) launched a plan back in 1993 to make home helplines available throughout the country. Today, nine autonomous communities and the Autonomous City of Melilla offer these telephone helplines as a public service. IMSERSO shoulders 65% of the cost of the programme and, in most cases, the rest of the tab is picked up by the communities included in the pact.

Public work�experience
Development and implementation of the helpline services in the various communities that offer them has differed significantly, and in some areas, supply actually exceeds demand. This is the case of the province of Guadalajara, where there are currently over 1,000 clients hooked up, but many more available terminals waiting to be used by the elderly or disabled people who may need them.

As for Andalusia, the regional government claims that 12% of elderly residents there are registered with telephone helpline services. The community has drawn up a study analysing the types of calls the call centre receives. Over half - a full 64% - are calls motivated by simple loneliness, and so the centre has taken the initiative to follow up on each and every one of these clients, calling them on special days and contacting them at least once a week to check up on their emotional or physical well-being. In 2002, only 7% of calls were motivated by emergency situations.

To register for the helpline service, all you have to do is get in touch with your local Social Security department and fill out the necessary forms.

Private work experience
Since the public health care sector is still unable to offer this service to everyone, there are many private-sector companies that have taken up the slack and started to marked their own telephone helplines for low monthly rates ranging between 45 and 80 euros. The services they offer are quite diverse, from the mere reception of an emergency call to medical check-ups for the elderly. Not long ago, a major telemedicine - or medical services via telephone - company presented a videoconference terminal which not only allows fully personalised medical attention, but also takes the patient's blood pressure and pulse on a weekly basis and can perform a cardiac auscultation to monitor conditions.