BT has tightened its checks on care alarm users during the phone switch
If someone in your house wears a care alarm and the line is still on the old copper network, the way BT moves you across to a digital phone service has just been tightened. As reported by ISPreview, Ofcom has closed a compliance remediation process it had running on BT over its handling of vulnerable customers during the switch from analogue to digital phone services, after BT made changes the regulator says it is satisfied with.
The concerns date from February 2026, ISPreview reports. They centred on an outbound calling campaign, where BT rings customers to move them across rather than waiting to be called. Ofcom listed several problems with it. BT’s published policy on protecting vulnerable customers was not clear enough. Its staff could incorrectly record whether someone used telecare equipment. And where a telecare service stopped working after a migration, getting it going again could be delayed or handled inconsistently.
What BT has changed
On ISPreview’s account of the closed case, BT has added further safeguards to verify a telecare customer before an order is progressed, including new system alerts and more agent training. It has strengthened how service is put back when something goes wrong: alerts prompting staff to escalate, stronger checks after a migration, and a proactive review where there has been a fault on the line. The published vulnerability policy has been reviewed and updated too. Ofcom said the changes sufficiently address the concerns it identified and secure meaningful additional protections for vulnerable customers. Most are already in place. The rest of the systems and policy work is due by the end of November 2026.
Does that fix it for your household?
Only if BT knows about the alarm, and that is the honest limit of it. Every one of those safeguards starts from a correct record that somebody at the address uses telecare, and getting exactly that wrong was one of the things Ofcom picked up on. A better process still cannot protect a household nobody has flagged.
So the useful thing is not to wait for the new checks to find you. Tell your provider plainly that there is a care alarm on the line, and tell whoever monitors that alarm that the line is moving to digital. Two calls, and they are worth making even if you were told once already.
There is not much time left to make them. ISPreview puts the close of the old copper network at 31 January 2027, and cites Openreach figures from the end of July 2026 showing around 1.5 million UK lines still on the legacy phone service, down from 1.9 million in June, roughly 350,000 of them business premises.
Our guide to the care alarm and the digital switchover goes through which alarms are at risk and who can actually give you an answer, and broadband for pensioners covers the rest of what the copper switch-off changes at home. If a switch has already gone wrong for you, our guide to broadband complaints sets out how to escalate it properly.