A Bromley entrepreneur has launched an SOS service for the elderly which turns any mobile phone into a personal alarm and promises to save families and the NHS millions of pounds a year.

My SOS Family allows pensioners to alert relatives by touching a single button on a mobile phone if they suffer a fall or health emergency.

The system then auto-dials, texts and emails relatives, who can then respond accordingly.

My SOS Family costs just £30-a-year and can be used from any existing mobile phone.

The service is the brainchild of Moony Victoire-Nijjar, who started working on the idea two years ago when his mother-in-law was diagnosed with dementia.

He said: "Modern life has displaced families and it's difficult to create community security.

"Our goal to bring back those lost community values that protected the elderly and vulnerable."

Families and councils currently pay hundreds of pounds per year for manned call centre alert systems.

These work by pendants alerting a call centre, which then makes contact with relatives who can come to the aid of a loved one.

But Mr Victoire-Nijjar, a married father-of-two, said: "I realised these places are basically call centres where staff simply ring around your relatives until somebody responds.

"I thought there must be a more efficient way of doing things with the technology that we all carry around in our pockets."

His solution is an alert system which automatically phones and messages a pre-stored unlimited number of contacts in the event of an emergency.

All the user needs is a mobile phone or their home phone which has a pre-set number key to press in an emergency.

Because there are no call centres involved, the system costs just 8p per day.

If the system was implemented in councils, it could save millions and allow more people to access the community support at a fraction of the current cost.

With councils spending £65millon per year on telecare monitored systems, My SOS Family could save local authorities a fortune.

The system could also enable elderly patients to be discharged from hospital sooner, helping to slash the estimated £900m annual cost of delays in discharging patients to the NHS.

Mr Victoire-Nijjar said: "Our technology not only reconnects communities, it actually helps create connected communities, bringing back the best of those golden community values that protected the elderly and vulnerable."

My SOS Family is currently available online at www.mysosfamily.com