Elderly and Vulnerable people

There has been a lot of discussion about discontinuing copper based services and moving to VoIP and teh potential problems that it may cause for the elderly of those cosidered vulnerable and in need of an alarm or phone in all cases.

I live 200 miles from my father-in-law and am a nominated contact on and effectively control his phone/broadband account.

On Saturday, late afternoon, we received a call from a neighbour to tell us the phone and broadband were down - that immediatly causes problems on his personal alarm. It was raised with Plusnet who have the account listed as a "Welfare Account".

Just after 9:00 on Sunday, I received a message that Openreach had assigned the job and would be there soon - they also provided the Technician's number and I spoke with him with access details. He called back to "van has broken down" and job would be reassigned. Shortly after another Technician called me directly and he was en-route.

Around 11:30, another call to tell me fault fixed and all services tested - yes it was all fine.


So, if you have elderly or vulnerable relatives, choose their service provider wisely. Plusnet and BT Consumer will provide the additional service to get a repair completed on the Next Day, not next working day as Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays are included - additionbal cost to the customer NIL.

Which other providers have a similar level of service?

Wonderful hearing a positive story.

There is a welfare team within openreach that deals with these escalations. I would imagine bt consumer have their own team due to the volume of vulnerable end users they have. Few other providers would have the scale to justify such a team and escalate to Openreach as part of their BAU procedures.

I agree with this, but also the providers of these care alarms need to get off their backsides and do something - they have had four years notice by this point. Unfortunately like a lot of other providers in the medical space they are happy to just sit back and collect subscription fees while waiting for the telecoms sector to bail them out of trouble.

Intruder alarms have been dual path cellular and IP for *years* now, lift companies are finally pulling their fingers out and addressing the issue for emergency phones, but I've not seen any evidence that these personal alarm providers are doing anything proactive. You can still go to companies where the only alarm they provide is single-path PSTN, and the website makes no mention at all of the upcoming PSTN retirement.

So, if you have elderly or vulnerable relatives, choose their service provider wisely. Plusnet and BT Consumer will provide the additional service to get a repair completed on the Next Day, not next working day as Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays are included - additionbal cost to the customer NIL.

Which other providers have a similar level of service?

All! It legal requment for all infrastructure providers Electric/Gas/Water/Telecoms.
https://cpdonline.co.uk/knowledge-base/safeguarding/...

If contact one utils provider they should info all other utils providers of that address issues. There is no harm to informing each of your utility providers of the issue at that address, in fact it advisable to do so because it just a should.

All in all it should like it ended up fine and good. Hopefuly (as it sounds) your relative and your self are happy about the out come.

In reply to a post by jpm:

I agree with this, but also the providers of these care alarms need to get off their backsides and do something - they have had four years notice by this point. Unfortunately like a lot of other providers in the medical space they are happy to just sit back and collect subscription fees while waiting for the telecoms sector to bail them out of trouble.

Intruder alarms have been dual path cellular and IP for *years* now, lift companies are finally pulling their fingers out and addressing the issue for emergency phones, but I've not seen any evidence that these personal alarm providers are doing anything proactive. You can still go to companies where the only alarm they provide is single-path PSTN, and the website makes no mention at all of the upcoming PSTN retirement.

Expect that they don’t have any in-house development / it’s done as a contract one-off basis. Therefore they have little incentive to innovate as you say. One major product release per decade would be good going. Then sweat the asset, plough all your budget into sub sales and marketing…until the customers head for the exit or scream for updates.

In reply to a post by jpm:

I agree with this, but also the providers of these care alarms need to get off their backsides and do something - they have had four years notice by this point. Unfortunately like a lot of other providers in the medical space they are happy to just sit back and collect subscription fees while waiting for the telecoms sector to bail them out of trouble.

Yep mainly agree with that sentiment, but that only because things I don't know about. It been no secret that was happing with telecoms system. I have no knowalge of persional alarms.
Is hardware being sold or leased?

If hardware being sold and paying usage support fee then it not unresinable being chaged for new hardware. Do think that right thing to do morally no, but legaly yes.

If hardware being leased well then it down to them to change it, simple really.

But what would is so unresponsible is the fact they did not inform people about this pending service disruption.

Link.

vulnerable person bt

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

sweat the asset, plough all your budget into sub sales and marketing…until the customers head for the exit

Given the demographic we're talking about, that might be an unfortunate choice of words

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

sweat the asset, plough all your budget into sub sales and marketing…until the customers head for the exit

Given the demographic we're talking about, that might be an unfortunate choice of words

Indeed it is, as an elderly person, I m triggered by this.

Expect a visit from the thought police and/or the Spanish Inquisition. Hate crime at its worst.