This topic

How to divert outgoing 999 calls

onbehalfofdad — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 16:32:16 GMT

Hi - I'm looking for some ideas please. My 92.5 year old father has mild Alzheimer's disease, lives alone at home with carer support but keeps using his BT landline to call the police to report his late-wife as 'missing'. His wife died last November and the police are aware of it but the volume calls are causing a nuisance, blocking genuine calls to the emergency services and the Contact Centre needs a solution - fast. Various ideas have been mooted with Social Services and his care agency including signs next to the phone and PIR-activated voice prompts positioned beside the phone, but all are ignored and he persists in dialling 999. This has been ongoing all year, increasing since April and escalating since August - I'm told there were 12 calls yesterday.

The landline phone can't be removed from him but is there any way dialling outgoing 999 calls could be either barred or redirected to 101 (or even CareCall) so he isn't using the resources of the emergency services.

All ideas and suggestions welcomed. Thanks.

Re: How to divert outgoing 999 calls

36ULW — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 17:15:47 GMT

BT do offer a Call Barring Service but you can not Block/Redirect 999 Calls on it.

To be honest given the nature of what 999 is for I don’t think there’s anyway you could Block/Redirect the calls.

Re: How to divert outgoing 999 calls

onbehalfofdad — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 20:53:59 GMT

I suspect this is the case. Ideally a divert on the outgoing 999 call to 101 would resolve the issue.

The police want dad to go into a care home but, apart from this, he's coping reasonably well at home with carer support and does not want to lose his independence or his home, which would be necessary to pay care home fees.

I am also looking into OwnFone where just 12 numbers are programmed into a mobile handset with no numeric keypad and 'emergency' calls could be routed to 101, but I'm not sure he'd adapt to using a mobile. He already has one and the police can block this, but insists on using a traditional landline - which is the issue.

Re: How to divert outgoing 999 calls

Keith_Beddoe — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 05:58:56 GMT

See https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-phone-including-Digital/Call-barring-for-vulnerable-customer/td-p/2306899

Re: How to divert outgoing 999 calls

onbehalfofdad — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 19:03:47 GMT

This looks interesting, thank you. I will follow it up...

Re: How to divert outgoing 999 calls

NeilO — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 19:38:31 GMT

Hi @onbehalfofdad Thanks for posting, I can appreciate the need to stop these calls. It's the life events team that you'll need to be put through to and they'll be able to discuss if Network controlled calling will be suitable for your father's needs. Let us know how you get on.

Thanks

Neil