Will a telecare alarm still work after the landline switch-off?

Not automatically — and if it fails, it may fail silently. The pendant lights up, the unit appears to dial, and the call never reaches the monitoring centre. Nobody finds out until the day it is needed.

The reason is not technical. It is that two organisations are involved and neither owns the join: the phone company knows the line is changing but not what is plugged into it, and the alarm company knows the device but not when the line changes. Each assumes the other has handled it.

Here is exactly what to do, and the words to say to each of them.

The short answer

• Many telecare units work fine over a digital line. Most people have no problem at all.
• Some do not, and the failure can be invisible from the house.
• There is no reliable public list of which is which. That is precisely why the answer below is a process rather than a lookup — and why you should be wary of any page that offers you a compatibility table.

The one instruction that matters most: tell the phone provider before the line is switched, and confirm with the telecare provider separately. Everything else on this page follows from those two calls.

Why this falls through the cracks

Two organisations, and no single owner. The phone provider schedules the migration; the telecare provider supplied the equipment. Neither routinely contacts the other, and the household is the only party that talks to both.

There are real protections — but they only trigger if the provider knows. Providers signed a voluntary charter with government in December 2023 which commits them not to migrate a telecare user without confirming their equipment is compatible and working, and to offer a free engineer visit where appropriate to customers identified as needing extra support. Read that again: identified. Telling them is what starts the protection. It is the whole ballgame.

Your concern is legitimate, and there is a regulator’s decision to prove it. In December 2025 Ofcom fined Virgin Media £23.8 million over its treatment of telecare customers during the landline migration. Ofcom found the company had failed to follow its own vulnerable-customer policies: it did not properly identify and record telecare customers, and around 3,500 known telecare customers were disconnected. Ofcom made no finding that anyone came to harm — its case was about the risk that was created.

That is worth knowing not to frighten you, but because it changes how firmly you are entitled to ask.

What to do, step by step

1. Work out whether the line is already digital. Look at where the telephone plugs in. Into a socket in the wall means the line is still analogue. Into the broadband router, or into a small adapter in a power socket, means it has already been switched.
2. Write down what the alarm is. The make and model are usually printed on the base unit next to the telephone. Photograph the label — it saves a second phone call.
3. Find out who monitors it. Usually the local council, a housing association or a private monitoring company. The name is normally on the unit, or on a sticker or card by the phone. If nobody knows, start with the council’s adult social care team.
4. Call the phone provider. Use script A below.
5. Call the telecare provider. Use script B below. Ask for the answer in writing; an email is fine.
6. Ask about backup power if there is no mobile signal at the property, or the person depends on the phone for care. Ask the telecare provider separately whether the alarm unit has its own battery and how long it lasts.
7. Be there on the day if you can, or arrange for someone to be.
8. Test it the same day. Press the test button and confirm with the monitoring centre that the call arrived and the address showed correctly.
9. Test it again a week later. Some faults only appear once the line settles.

Steps 8 and 9 are the ones everybody skips. They are the only steps that catch a silent failure.

What to say: two phone scripts

Read these aloud. They are written to be said, not summarised.

Script A — to the phone provider

“I’m calling about the switch to a digital phone line at this address.

Someone at this address uses a telecare alarm. Please record that on the account as a vulnerable customer with telecare equipment.

I’d like to know the planned switch date. And I need to know what you will do to make sure the alarm keeps working.

Can you also tell me whether battery backup is available for this address, and whether we need a corded telephone as well?

Please confirm all of this by email.”

Script B — to the telecare provider

“The phone line at this address is being switched from the old analogue network to a digital line. It is scheduled for [date].

The alarm unit is a [make and model].

Can you confirm whether this equipment will work over a digital phone line?

If it will not, what will you replace it with, and when?

Please confirm that in writing. I’d also like to know how to test the alarm once the line has been switched.”

What to do with the answers

• If either says “it should be fine” without confirming the model, ask again, and ask for it in writing. A general reassurance is not a check.
• If the switch date arrives before you have a written answer, ask the phone provider to delay it. They can, and this is a reasonable thing to ask for.
• Keep a note of who you spoke to and when. It matters a great deal if something goes wrong afterwards.

Power cuts

A digital line runs through the broadband router, and the router needs mains power. So a power cut takes out the phone line and anything that depends on it, including 999.

The protection. Ofcom’s guidance is that providers should have at least one solution available giving a minimum of one hour of access to emergency services in a power cut, and should provide it free to customers who are dependent on their landline — which includes anyone with no other way of calling 999. It is guidance rather than binding law, and Ofcom does not specify what the solution must be.

So ask for it. Do not wait to be offered it.

Three practical points:

• One hour is a minimum, not a target. If power cuts are common locally, or the person lives alone, a small UPS on the router extends it considerably.
• A battery that powers the router still needs a corded telephone. Ofcom is explicit that providers are not expected to make cordless phones work, because a cordless base station has its own mains plug. A cheap corded phone in a drawer solves this.
• Ask the telecare provider about the alarm’s own battery, separately. That is a different question from the phone line, and only they can answer it.

If the property has no mobile signal, this stops being an inconvenience and becomes the main risk, because there is then no fallback at all. See fix mobile signal at home. The landline switch-off explained covers power cuts in full.

What else in the house might be affected

Things that dial out on their own, which the household has usually forgotten about:

• Monitored burglar and fire alarms
• Lift emergency phones, in a block of flats
• Fall detectors and bed or door sensors that report separately from the pendant
• Older cordless phones and answering machines, sometimes

Rather than work from any list, do this: walk through the house and look for anything with a telephone cable coming out of it. That instruction is more reliable than any list we could write.

If the alarm stops working

• Treat it as an emergency fault with both organisations, and use the word “vulnerable” — it triggers specific obligations.
• Ask what interim arrangement they will provide today, not what they will schedule. Say it in those words.
• If the alarm is the person’s only way of calling for help, say so explicitly on the call. It changes the priority.
• Afterwards, if it is not resolved, complain formally. Since 8 April 2026 an unresolved complaint can go to alternative dispute resolution after six weeks rather than eight, or sooner with a deadlock letter. See how to complain about your broadband and the complaint letter generator.

Remember too that if the broadband goes down, the phone and the alarm go with it — what to do when your broadband is down.

Independent help

• Your local council’s adult social care team — the right starting point if nobody knows who monitors the alarm.
• Age UK and Citizens Advice — free, independent, and able to help someone who is not online.
• Ofcom — the regulator’s guidance on migration and on power cuts.
• GOV.UK — the Telecare National Action Plan, the government’s own document on protecting telecare users. An estimated 2 million people in the UK use telecare, and this plan is what the industry is being held to.

Many households in this position also qualify for a cheaper social tariff, which is worth checking while you have the provider on the phone.

→ Use the landline switch-off explained