Scottish Housing Network Annual Event - Ready or Not, Here Comes Digital
Scotland’s Housing Network (SHN) held their annual gathering and AGM on the 2nd of November 2023 at the Studio in Glasgow. Many housing colleagues came together at the event sharing best practice, attending workshops and face-to-face networking throughout the day. Paul McLennan MSP was the keynote speaker giving an insight into the Housing Bill 2023 and future priorities for housing across Scotland.
Thanks to Andrea Finkel-Gates, Chief Executive Officer at SHN for providing us with the opportunity to reach out to their housing membership on the challenges of the December 2025 analogue switch-off. Sharon Hannah, our Digital Telecare Project Manager delivered a workshop highlighting the support provided by the Digital Telecare Programme and the wealth of information and resources available within Digital Telecare Playbook.
Discussing the opportunities and highlighting the ongoing challenges housing partners are facing migrating telecare equipment from analogue to digital, Sharon started her presentation by giving the audience a 790-day notice period of the digital switch-off. Following this she explored digital readiness and how to get from appraisal of telecare equipment, staff and customer engagement through to communicating and planning the migration journey.
The BT/ OpenReach stop-sell from 5th September was explained, confirming any business or residential customers looking to order traditional analogue copper lines (normally referred to as WLR or PSTN) must instead take an IP-based digital line alternative.
In preparation of the digital shift, Sharon also highlighted some of the many services that may be supported by analogue that will require digital upgrades or conversion in time the withdrawal of PSTN.
Supported devices that may stop working:
- Telecare DAUs
- Warden call systems
- Door access systems
- Lifts with alarm buttons
- Fax machines
- Vending machines
- Fire alarm panels or systems
- Phone systems
- Building management monitoring
- ARC supported solutions
Sharon then talked over how the Digital Telecare Programme can help navigate you through the discover, planning and implementation phases of the analogue to digital journey. Templates and guidance are available within the Digital Telecare Playbook to support in the preparation of a business case, options appraisal, action plan, data protection impact assessment, data cleansing and much more. She introduced the support meetings and supplier events along with our Teams and Yammer communities for sharing information and devices.
She finished by providing a link to our Housing Resource Pack that serves as a go-to guide of tools and resources to support the analogue to digital migration.
