Officers are asking for your help to trace missing people with dementia
The Herbert Protocol is being rolled out nationwide.
Officers are asking for your help to trace missing people with dementia.
The Herbert Protocol is a form containing personal details, a recent photograph and a description of that person.
It is usually kept in their home or with relatives.
If the person were to go missing, detectives use the information to try to trace them as quickly as possible.
The scheme which is being launched by Police Scotland has been developed in partnership with Health and Social Care Scotland, Alzheimer Scotland and the Scottish Government.
Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie said: “When a person goes missing, the first hour is vitally important.
"Previously, we would have spent a significant amount of time gathering information from family, friends or carers, but being able to give officers a completed Herbert Protocol form saves valuable minutes and hours.
“We hope that families who choose to complete a form will never have to use them.
"But if they do, having that completed form to hand gives relatives or carers peace of mind that they’re providing the police with detailed, relevant information to enable us to send officers to places where your loved one may be."
Morag Francis is a carer for her mum, who has a dementia diagnosis. Her family has already completed a Herbert Protocol form.
She said: “We did it as a little project with Mum, because it was about her life, so it turned into a bit of a reminiscence session, so we could pinpoint areas that were still important to her.
"We could guess most of them because she did talk a lot about the past, but we wanted to make sure we'd thought of all the areas she might turn up at because that's where she remembered.
"To me it's my insurance document, because I appreciate if we couldn't find her the levels of stress would be incredible and we wouldn't really be able to think straight."
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