Every business has something to sort before the analogue phone network closes on 31 January 2027. Care homes have more of it than almost anyone, and the consequences of missing something are not an inconvenience. Nurse call, pendant alarms, lift phones, door entry and fire signalling can all be sitting on analogue lines, often fitted by different contractors years apart, with no single list of what is where. Here is how to work through it.
The 30-second version
- The analogue network closes on 31 January 2027. Anything relying on a traditional phone line stops.
- Care homes carry more affected equipment than most premises, and most of it is safety equipment.
- The power cut problem is the one people miss. Old phone lines worked when the building lost power. Digital ones do not, without battery backup.
- Your equipment suppliers hold half the answers. Ask them in writing what each system uses and what it needs.
- Start with the life safety items: nurse call, telecare and lift phones first, convenience later.
On this page
Why care homes are affected more than most
A typical office has a phone system, a card machine and maybe an alarm. A care home has all of that plus a layer of resident safety equipment that has been added to over many years, usually by specialist contractors who did their own bit and left.
The result is a building with more analogue dependencies than anybody realises, and no one person who knows where they all are. That is the actual problem to solve before the deadline, and it is a paperwork problem as much as a technical one.
The equipment to check
| System | Why it matters | What usually happens |
|---|---|---|
| Nurse call and warden call | How a resident summons staff | Some systems are self-contained, others dial out or report off site |
| Telecare and pendant alarms | How a resident reaches a monitoring centre | Analogue units need replacing with digital or SIM-based ones |
| Lift emergency phones | A legal safety requirement for anyone trapped | Usually replaced with a GSM module and its own SIM |
| Fire alarm signalling | Alerts the monitoring centre and often the fire service | Moves to a digital path, a SIM, or both together |
| Door entry and gate intercoms | Controls who gets in, and lets staff release doors | SIM-based or IP intercom |
| Staff attack and lone worker alarms | Staff safety, especially on night shifts | Often already mobile, but worth confirming |
| Resident room phones | Residents keeping in touch with family | Move to digital voice, with the power point below |
Not all of it will be affected. Plenty of modern nurse call systems are entirely internal and do not touch a phone line at all. The point is to find out rather than assume, because the ones that do dial out tend to be the oldest ones.
The part most people miss: power cuts
This is the single most important difference, and it gets very little attention. A traditional analogue phone line drew its power from the exchange, not from the building. When the power went off, the phone still worked. That is why it ended up being used for safety equipment in the first place.
Digital voice does not work that way. It runs over your broadband, through your router, which is plugged into the wall. When the building loses power, the router goes off and so does everything depending on it, unless somebody has planned for that.
- Battery backup for the router and any network kit, sized for a realistic outage rather than five minutes.
- Equipment with its own backup battery, which most alarm and lift systems already have, but which needs testing rather than assuming.
- A mobile fallback, because a SIM in a device with its own battery keeps working when the building does not.
Worth raising with your suppliers directly
Ask each supplier the specific question: what happens to this system in a power cut after the switch-off, and what do you recommend. Get the answer in writing. It is a reasonable question and a good supplier will have a ready answer.
What to do, in what order
- Walk the building and list everything plugged into a phone socket. Nurse call panel, lift motor room, riser cupboards, reception, office, plant room, gate. Photograph the make and model of each one.
- Check your phone bill against that list. Lines you cannot account for are almost always one of these devices.
- Ask every maintenance supplier in writing what their system uses today, what it needs after January 2027, what it costs and how long the work takes.
- Sort the list by consequence, not by cost. Nurse call, telecare and the lift phone come first. Resident room phones and convenience items can follow.
- Book the safety work early. Specialist engineers get very busy as the deadline approaches, and care homes cannot simply have equipment offline for a fortnight while somebody sources a part.
- Plan the power question alongside it, rather than discovering it during the first winter power cut afterwards.
Who is responsible for what
This trips people up, because the answer is that it is shared and nobody owns all of it.
Your equipment suppliers are responsible for their own systems: the nurse call company for the nurse call, the lift company for the lift phone, the telecare provider for the pendants. They should be telling you what changes and when. Many are, but not all, and some will only respond if asked.
Your telecoms provider is responsible for the lines and the connectivity underneath. That is our part: making sure the connections those systems depend on are there, sized properly and still working. Where a device needs a SIM, we supply and monitor it, so a unit that goes quiet shows up rather than waiting for the annual service visit.
What nobody else can do for you is hold the list. The building is yours, and the single sheet of paper saying what is where and what has been dealt with has to live with you.
If the home is part of a group
Do this per site, not centrally. Buildings in the same group are frequently fitted out differently, and the one everybody forgets is usually the oldest one.
Want a hand working through the list?
Send us your phone bill and a few photos of what is plugged in where. We will tell you which lines are doing what, which ones matter most, and what each one needs instead. No charge, and no obligation.