The sum of £460,000 was last week approved to help fund the switch to digital for Stirling’s Mobile Emergency Care System (MECS) for older and vulnerable people.
Analogue phone lines across the UK are being phased out and replaced with digital lines between now and December 2025.
Stirling councillors approved capital funding of £353,000 in this financial year, 2022/23, and £705,000 in 2023/24 to fund the switch over.
In a paper put before councillors, head of strategic planning and health improvement Wendy Forest said: ‘This will allow vulnerable service users to continue to be able to access their personal emergency alarms at the point when analogue telephone lines are fully decommissioned.’
Trossachs and Teith councillors however raised concerns about the move to digital. Councillor Gene Maxwell pointed out that during storms like last November’s Storm Arwen it was only analogue landlines that worked because digital masts went down.
He asked what the plan was for such events. Ms Forest said they were working with BT to ensure they were not missing anything and to ensure plans were in place.
Councillor Martin Earl said he wished they were not changing from the analogue system “because it works”.
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He asked about the emergency services digital network - and was told that the council had access to that and emergency responders.
In order to make the required changes to community alarm equipment, the combined capital and revenue budgets required in year one is £382k and year two is £814k with an ongoing revenue requirement of approx. £120k per year from year three onwards.
The request being made of Stirling Council within this Business Case is for Capital costs only for £353k in year 1 (22/23) and £705k in year 2 (23/24).
At the 23 February 2022 Integration Joint Board finance and performance committee there was approval to recommend ‘in project’ revenue costs for the Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) Analogue to Digital Mobile Emergency Care Service Switchover project in Stirling, with costs being met through Integration Joint Board transformation earmarked reserves of £138k.
The ongoing revenue costs will require further consideration in due course with reference to: social care charging policy and ‘emergent Scottish Government policy in respect of establishment of a National Care Service and stated intent to abolish non-residential charging for Social Care.’
