How we make and receive telephone calls is changing.
By 2025, most telephone providers will close their traditional copper lines – known as the public switched telephone network – and update to a digital line.
Communications providers have already started moving customers to new digital telephone landlines, and this change should be straightforward for most people.
However, this switchover impacts the technology-enabled care sector, and the two million people who rely on those services in the UK.
Devices such as fall detectors and personal alarms connect to a landline, so care is needed to make sure these are not disconnected.
Digital landlines also cannot carry a power connection, so in the event of a power cut they will not work. Mobile phones can still be used, but if people do not have any other means of calling the emergency services, their telecoms provider must offer a solution for them.
Councils have a critical role to play in the digital switchover, which is fast approaching and will impact on a whole range of vital services, including in adult social care.
Unless action is taken now to support councils to help residents and suppliers with this change, we face the prospect of serious disruption to people’s lives including, most urgently, those who use personal healthcare devices to stay safe in their own homes.
Expanding high-speed digital access is essential to economic growth, but it should not be at the expense of those who are older and more vulnerable.
Our digital switchover hub – part-funded by our Partners in Care and Health programme, a partnership with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services – has a range of valuable resources for councils.
These include a telecare checklist, which provides risk-mitigation guidance and future planning to authorities, plus advice for councils to raise awareness of and mitigate criminal scams.
Also on the hub is a toolkit for councils and partners to raise awareness of the digital switchover with their residents and communities.
Most services and providers should be checking in with their clients before the switchover, but we are supporting councils to ensure they can reach residents, too.
The toolkit contains social media resources, printable leaflet templates and draft copy for websites and bulletins.
We are also developing and testing future resources to support councils to understand if they are ready for the digital switchover and the impact this has.
It covers business cases, communications, and implementation. We will be developing this work over the next financial year.
If you are interested in taking part in testing the future resources, please email [email protected]
To access the LGA’s digital switchover hub, please visit www.local.gov.uk/digital-switchover.