Digital Switchover readiness survey reveals a fifth of councils have a digital-ready solution in place
A new survey reveals councils are still unaware of the impact the digital switch will have on respondent organisations.
The national telephony network is undergoing a change process, which will see the 1.7 million people who access technology enabled care and support at risk of being left without a connection.
While this work is a communications industry-led process, the potential impacts beyond telephony and broadband services are significant and possibly impactful on the services that local authorities commission, deliver, and refer to, including telecare services.
The Local Government Association (LGA) and Partners in Care and Health (PCH)’s Digital Switchover Working Group conducted a readiness survey to gauge councils’ position on awareness, planning, and implementation of the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN).
The purpose of the survey was to inform support offered to councils, as the switchover has urgent implications for the sector and the millions of people who rely on telecare in the UK. Councils need to move to digital systems by 2025 to ensure that care technology reliability and safety is not compromised.
The online survey was launched at the end of August 2022, and responses were accepted up to 26 September. A total of 59 councils completed surveys were received, two of which were joint responses from shire district councils working in partnership, giving a response rate of 18 percent.
Findings revealed three quarters of respondents were fully aware of the impact of the digital shift on telecare services, and the remaining quarter had some awareness.
Most councils have plans in place to manage the digital switchover, and a number have already started to implement these plans. Most councils are confident that they will be able manage the switchover with minimal disruption to their telecare services.
90 percent of respondents were confident about their ability to manage the digital shift with minimal impact on their telecare service and service users.
While some councils understand the costs and funding requirement, scoping work is still ongoing in others. Several councils are yet to identify how they will fund the move, and some are considering increasing their charges to service users.
A fifth of respondents have a digital-ready solution in place for telecare, and a third are in the process of putting one in place.
A further 15 percent have a plan which they have not yet implemented, 20 percent have completed early-stage planning, while just three percent do not currently have a plan in place.
Over a quarter of respondents are replacing/upgrading all of their analogue alarm units with digital devices as soon as possible, and half only plan to continue using them for up to two further years.
27 percent of respondents understand the costs and have obtained the funding required to complete the move to digital telecare, 25 percent understand the costs but have not yet obtained the funding, and a further 27 percent do not yet understand the funding required.
Nearly two fifths of respondents do not yet know how they will fund the move to digital telecare, while a third intend to fund it from council budgets.
A further eight percent will use a combination of council funding and increases to service user charges, and three percent will fund the move to digital telecare solely through increased service user charges.
Councils are concerned that there is a lack of information in relation to the switchover, particularly from service providers. They have also flagged up the potential for technology failure and supply chain issues.
There were high levels of awareness of the impact the digital switch will have on respondent organisations more widely; just over two fifths were fully aware, almost half had some awareness, and under a tenth had heard about it but did not know the detail.
However, three percent were still unaware of the impact the digital switch will have on respondent organisations.