ABSTRACT
Sheltered housing has been developed predominantly by local housing authorities. Publically funded housing associations, on the other hand, have played, latterly, an increasingly significant role. The growth in Emergency Response Systems (ERS) in the United Kingdom has, during the 1980s, been substantial. The home ERS unit has, arguably, heralded a period wherein hard wired systems in sheltered housing or grouped dwellings will play a diminishing role. The manner of evolution of ERS in the UK, being essentially property based and ‘rooted’ within local housing authorities rather than housing associations, has resulted in a perception of the role of ERS that is likely to be distinctly different from that which has emerged in other countries. The pattern for local authority and housing association use of ERS in the United Kingdom is set, being largely determined by the emergence and initial usage within sheltered housing schemes.
