We're fully digital!

What does a fully digital end-to-end service mean?

Digital care alarms for all customers

All Nottingham on Call care alarms are now digital, including both home-based alarms and mobile alarms.

Unlike older analogue alarms, digital alarms do not rely on telephone landlines. Instead, they use fully roaming SIM cards, which constantly search for the strongest available mobile network. This helps make sure customers have the best possible connection when raising an alert in an emergency.

Home-based alarms simply require access to a power socket, while mobile alarms need regular monthly charging.

An additional benefit of our digital alarms is that there are no landline call charges when raising an alert through Nottingham on Call, as all call costs are included within the weekly service price.

Last November, more than 1,000 of our customers were still using alarms connected to landlines. Following a focused equipment replacement programme, completed in March, we’ve now successfully upgraded every customer.

As a result, all 5,000 Nottingham on Call customers, whether living independently in their own homes or within one of our Retirement Living schemes, now have fully digital alarm equipment. 
Our Registered Provider partners who use Nottingham on Call to manage care calls have also completed their upgrades.

Upgraded digital call handling system

Alongside upgrading customer equipment, we’ve also moved our call handling system to digital.

This means all incoming alarm alerts are now received through digital call lines, creating a fully digital connection from customer alarm activation right through to our response centre.

The benefits of going digital

Moving to a fully digital service brings many benefits for customers, including:

• Faster connection times when alerts are raised
• Improved and more consistent call audio quality
• Greater reliability, with less risk of failed connections caused by ageing analogue networks and equipment
• Access to newer technology-enabled care (TEC) solutions, including systems that can proactively raise alerts based on changes in behaviour or activity patterns

These improvements help us continue delivering safe, responsive, and modern support services that enable people to remain independent in their own homes for longer.

Antony Dixon, Head of Nottingham on Call, said:

“I’m really proud that Nottingham on Call is now a fully digital service. I would like to thank our staff for their fantastic efforts in making sure that customer equipment was swapped out in a timely manner.

“Being fully digital will enable the service to offer the widest range of TEC solutions, helping vulnerable residents to continue living independently and safely in their own homes.”