The Digital Switchover in Gloucester: What It Means for Your Personal Alarm

The analogue telephone network is switched off on 31 January 2027. For Gloucester households the question is simple: does the personal alarm plug into a phone socket. If it does, it may lose the ability to call for help. Gloucestershire County Council is already replacing analogue equipment across the county.

What is changing in Gloucester, and when?

Traditional landlines across the city are being converted so calls run over broadband, and the network behind the old lines is retired on 31 January 2027. Telephone companies are running the change, not the council. Openreach is retiring the analogue network and each provider migrates its own customers.

The original target was 31 December 2025. It moved so vulnerable customers could be better protected, and Openreach has since said there will be no cliff edge on 1 February 2027, with remaining lines moved to alternative arrangements.

In Longlevens, Barnwood, Kingsholm or Tuffley the change usually amounts to a new router and a phone plugged into it. The difficulty is with anything else that quietly uses the line, and a monitored alarm is the obvious candidate.

Will my personal alarm still work after the switch-off?

Only if it does not depend on the line. Alarms with a mobile SIM inside are unaffected. Alarms that dial out from a telephone socket are the ones at risk, and the failure is silent. The unit still shows a light, the pendant still clicks, and the problem only appears when help is genuinely needed.

Around two million people in the UK use telecare, according to the Telecare National Action Plan published by the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. It commits that no telecare user will be migrated to a digital landline without the communications provider, the customer or the telecare provider confirming a compatible and functioning solution is in place. It only bites if someone has recorded that the alarm is there.

How do I check whether my alarm uses the phone line?

1. Follow both cables. One goes to the mains. If the second one ends in a telephone socket, the alarm is on the line and is affected.
2. Look at the phone. A handset in a wall socket means the line has not been converted. A handset in the back of the broadband router means it already has, so the alarm needs testing today.
3. Read the label underneath for the make and supplier, then ring them and ask whether the unit is digital ready. If the answer is vague, ask for it in writing.

Our guide to digital ready SOS devices explains what a modern replacement should be able to do.

What about alarms provided by Gloucestershire County Council?

Gloucester is a two-tier area and the split matters. Gloucester City Council does not run a community alarm service, which surprises people, because several neighbouring districts do: Cheltenham Borough Council has a Lifeline alarm service, there is Cotswold Careline, Forest Linkline in the Forest of Dean and a Careline run by Stroud District Council. The county council's telecare providers list names no equivalent for Gloucester city.

The county service is also narrower than many people expect. Gloucestershire County Council describes its own telecare as equipment for people who are unable to call for their own help in an emergency, and directs everyone else towards community alarm providers. So a pendant in a GL1 house may well have come from a private company rather than any council.

On the switchover, Gloucestershire is further ahead than most. In September 2025 the county council announced a £6 million investment over five years in technology enabled care with the provider Careium, and stated that it is switching all people using the existing analogue service to digital equipment ahead of the digital switchover deadline in 2027. That is a clear public commitment. It covers the county service, though, not every alarm in Gloucester.

What should Gloucester residents do now?

Ring the telephone provider and tell them a telecare alarm is used at the address by someone who depends on it. Ask for it to be noted on the account. That is what activates the national safeguards.

Then look at power. Ofcom requires providers to give at least one hour of access to emergency organisations during a power cut and to offer free battery backup to customers who rely on their landline to call 999. That unit comes from the phone company rather than the alarm supplier, and it protects the 999 call rather than the alarm itself.

Frequently asked questions

Where to start: look behind the base unit, tell your phone provider the alarm is there, and read our guide to the 2027 digital switchover. Our SOS pendant alarm page for Gloucester covers equipment and cost. Call our UK team on 01704 332840.

Holden Grange is a UK telecare provider based in Southport, a TSA member and certified under the TEC Quality Standards Framework. Our alarm receiving centre is UK based and operates 24 hours a day.