The digital telecare countdown: what Scottish housing providers must do before January 2027

Fewer than nine months remain until the Public Switched Telephone Network is permanently switched off.

For Scottish housing providers, that deadline is not an abstraction. It is a hard stop on the infrastructure that connects some of your most vulnerable residents to the support they depend on.

Scotland has made stronger progress than most of the UK on this transition. Nearly 90% of dispersed telecare is now digitally ready or fully digital to the Alarm Receiving Centre. That is genuinely encouraging. But dispersed telecare is the easier part. Grouped housing, where warden call systems are often decades old, integrated with lifts, fire detection, door entry, and key cabinets, is where the real complexity lies. And across Scotland’s grouped living schemes, including sheltered housing, retirement housing, and supported accommodation, the migration picture remains deeply uneven.

The organisations that have not yet completed their transition, or have not yet started, are running out of time to act on their own terms. After January 2027, those terms will be set for them.

Scotland’s approach: Once for Scotland, not once for each landlord

One of the most distinctive features of Scotland’s digital telecare response is the collaborative, nationally coordinated model built around the Digital Telecare Programme, led by Digital Office for Scottish Local Government. Rather than leaving every housing association and council to independently research, procure, and implement solutions, Scotland has invested in shared infrastructure for the transition: the Digital Telecare Playbook, the Housing Resource Pack, peer learning networks, cross-organisation collaboration forums, and an Implementation Award Scheme to recognise organisations reaching key migration milestones.

This Once for Scotland approach matters because grouped housing is not a problem any single organisation can solve at speed in isolation. The complexity of legacy warden call systems, the variation in resident needs, the interaction with Health and Social Care Partnerships, and the sheer number of providers undertaking simultaneous transitions means that shared learning is not a nice-to-have. It is the most efficient route to a safe outcome for residents.

If your organisation has not yet registered with the Digital Telecare Programme or accessed the Playbook, that is the most immediate action to take. The Playbook provides a structured eight-phase Housing Pathway aligned to the TEC in Housing Charter, covering discovery, options appraisal, planning, and implementation, with case studies from Highland Council, East Lothian Housing Association, Link Group, Castlehill Housing Association, and East Dumbartonshire Council already navigating the transition in practice.

The grouped housing challenge in Scotland

Warden call systems installed during the construction phase of sheltered housing schemes, some as old as 30 years, were never designed to operate over digital IP networks. They are often cabled in-wall with analogue infrastructure, and replacing them without major disruption requires careful planning and significant capital investment. They are also typically integrated with other building systems, which means the telecare migration cannot be considered in isolation.

The experience of Scottish housing providers navigating this is instructive. No single approach fits every situation, and the sector is moving away from the idea that a blanket like-for-like replacement is the right answer. East Lothian Housing Association, through collaborative assessment with East Lothian Council, found that only 25% of residents required or wanted telecare, allowing a right-sized approach that reduced costs and placed residents in control of their own choices. Castlehill Housing Association took a similar path, finding that only 30% of residents in their retirement housing sites opted for telecare, while upgrading their housing with care schemes to digital warden call solutions.

Link Group has gone further, decommissioning all grouped housing warden call systems and adopting dispersed alarm solutions entirely, following the approach pioneered by Highland Council. These models demonstrate that the transition to digital is not just a technical upgrade. It is an opportunity to fundamentally rethink how support is designed and delivered, starting from an assessment of what individual residents actually need rather than what happens to be installed.

Why procurement is the strategic lever, not just the sourcing process

Housing providers sometimes approach the digital switchover as a replacement exercise: audit what you have, find an equivalent digital product, and buy it. The risk in that approach is significant. It can embed legacy thinking into a new technology, miss the opportunity that digital TEC genuinely offers, and lock organisations into contracts that do not deliver the service quality their residents need.

Procurement done well sets the direction for the entire transition. That means starting with a thorough asset register before any specification is written, one that captures not just the telecare devices in place but the communication provider, Alarm Receiving Centre connections, integrated equipment, system phone numbers, and supplier details for every scheme. The Digital Telecare Programme provides a template for exactly this, and it is the right starting point because it makes informed decision-making possible.

From that asset register, an options appraisal can establish the right approach for each setting, whether that is full digital migration, a dispersed alarm model, integration with council-provided telecare, or, for organisations unable to complete full migration by January 2027, an interim arrangement using BT’s Pre-Digital Phone Line. PDPL is voice-only, not designed specifically for telecare, and BT’s own advice is unambiguous: move to digital before January 2027. But for organisations managing complex estates, understanding what interim options exist and their limitations is part of responsible planning.

The specification itself should define outcomes for residents, not just a list of devices. Digital TEC offers capabilities that analogue systems could never deliver: wearable devices that work outside the home, predictive analytics that identify deterioration before a crisis, integration with smart home technologies, and AI-enabled solutions that learn a resident’s routine and flag early signs of change. A strong specification captures what the telecare service needs to achieve, how systems must integrate with existing peripherals and Health and Social Care Partnership care pathways, and how the solution can be tailored to individual residents rather than applied as blanket coverage.

Quality standards that protect residents

Telecare is life-critical technology. The quality standards written into procurement must reflect that. Scottish housing providers should be specifying compliance with recognised industry benchmarks: BS 8521-2 for grouped living environments, EN 50134 for dispersed alarm systems, and BS 8684 for TEC services. Certification through TEC Quality’s Quality Standards Framework provides additional assurance, embedding accountability for reliability and performance throughout the supply chain.

In Scotland, the Care Inspectorate’s scrutiny of care at home and housing support services means that evidence of responsible, standards-led procurement is not just good practice. It is the kind of documentation that demonstrates organisational competence when regulatory questions are asked. The Scottish Social Housing Charter’s outcomes on housing support services and resident safety provide the accountability framework against which Scottish Housing Regulator inspections are conducted. Having a clear, auditable record of how telecare solutions were specified, evaluated, and contracted is part of meeting those expectations.

Connectivity is a particular quality concern in Scotland. Unlike analogue systems, digital telecare depends on broadband, mobile, and IP-based networks. Scotland’s geography means connectivity variability is a real operational risk, particularly for rural and remote housing stock. Specifications should address connectivity requirements explicitly, and suppliers should be able to demonstrate how their solutions perform in low-connectivity environments. The Digital Telecare Programme is actively working with providers and suppliers on this, including testing LoRaWAN technology and other signal-enhancing solutions. Procurement teams should factor connectivity resilience into their evaluation criteria, not treat it as a post-award operational issue.

Health and Social Care Partnerships: the relationship that shapes the transition

Scotland’s approach to health and social care integration, through Health and Social Care Partnerships established under the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014, means that telecare sits at the intersection of housing, health, and social care in a way that is distinctive to Scotland. Many residents who depend on telecare in housing association properties are also supported by HSCPs through care at home services and equipment provision. The telecare migration cannot be handled by housing providers alone.

The most successful transitions in Scotland have been characterised by active collaboration between housing associations and their local HSCP or council telecare service. East Lothian Housing Association’s joint approach with East Lothian Council, which included the council funding and providing dispersed telecare units for residents who wanted them, is a model that others are now following. For housing associations considering their options, early and genuine engagement with HSCP partners is not just helpful. It can fundamentally change what is required of the housing provider and what residents receive.

Contract management: the work that starts after award

Procurement does not end when the contract is signed. For telecare, active contract management is a safeguarding obligation. Key performance indicators should be established at the outset, covering response reliability, device performance, and resolution of connectivity issues. Regular supplier review meetings, clear escalation routes, and open communication channels with the Alarm Receiving Centre are all essential to maintaining the reliability that residents depend on.

The Prove Telecare process, through which Openreach engineers confirm that alarm units are correctly connected to Digital Voice and tested to the ARC for compatibility, is an important safeguard as the migration proceeds. Housing teams should be working with their communication providers and telecare suppliers to ensure residents are being contacted and appointments booked. BT has announced significant analogue infrastructure price increases to accelerate migration. The commercial direction is clear, and housing providers whose residents are still on analogue systems will face increasing cost and reliability risk the longer the transition is delayed.

What to do now

The Digital Telecare Programme has produced clear guidance on where to start. Register with the Programme and access the Digital Telecare Playbook and Housing Resource Pack. Build or update your asset register using the Programme’s template. Undertake an options appraisal that starts from resident need, not installed equipment. Engage your HSCP or local authority telecare service early. And build the switchover into your board-level risk register if it is not already there, because the consequence of failing to complete this transition is not just an operational disruption. It is a safeguarding failure for the residents who press their alarm and find nothing happens.

Procurement teams have a central role to play in making this transition safe, compliant, and genuinely beneficial for residents. The January 2027 deadline is fixed. The window for acting on your own terms is closing.

Amanda Rimmer is category manager at Procurement for Housing Scotland (PfH Scotland)

This article is based on an opinion piece published in Housing Digital.

How PfH Scotland can help

The Technologies for Independent Living: Telecare and Telehealth framework provides Scottish housing associations and councils with a compliant, ready-to-use route to market for digital telecare equipment and services. It has been designed to give procurement teams fast access to a comprehensive range of evaluated digital TEC solutions, supporting a transition that protects residents and meets the highest standards of quality and reliability.

The SHED frameworks provide compliant access to innovative TEC suppliers operating at the leading edge of digital care technology, including IoT environmental monitoring, assisted living platforms, and AI-enabled care solutions..

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