So the situation is this. My aunt who is approaching 90 and my uncle who is over 90 are both living at home with visits from social services. They both have varying degrees of dementia. They would undoubtedly be classed as vulnerable adults. I live hundreds of miles from them so cannot help them directly, neither do they have family close by. Some time last year their phone was disconnected. I think my aunt would have normally paid bills as they came at the post office counter. They have never done online banking or direct debits etc. So I suppose she repeatedly forgot to pay the bill, or she didn't receive bills to pay... I am not fully sure what has happened. The phone though has been disconnected. So now they are even more vulnerable than they already were. I am utterly shocked that BT could have let this happen. I am pretty sure they would know the age of the person registered as the bill payer. There are some helpful neighbours involved. Both have LPA for my aunt although the phone was registered in my uncles name and there is no LPA, which I gather has been problematic. They tried to communicate with BT, even pay any arrears but BT were uncooperative because as I mentioned the phone is in my uncles name and there is no LPA for my uncle. The neighbours even furnished my aunt with a mobile phone as an alternative. However, this is not suitable for an elderly person with dementia as they need recharging and get lost, which I think must have happened as it goes straight to voicemail. The only solution can be to get the phone line reinstated and get them a wired phone that won't get lost and won't need charging.
I am flabbergasted that BT would allow things to come to this. I thought there would be codes of practice that would prevent this kind of thing happening. There is no shortage of means to pay the bills, just an extremely sad story that would have come to light if BT had done due diligence before disconnecting the phone line. So my uncle is over 90 and very frail, my aunt is approaching 90 and very forgetful. What if she needed to phone for an ambulance in the night (I think she might know to ring 999).
Could the group suggest how I can get the phone reconnected quickly from a distance (I live about 300 miles away from my aunt).
Should I be contacting OFCOM about this?
Thank you.
Sean
