DUDLEY Council’s emergency phone line users could face a price hike of nearly 10 percent under plans for new charges.

The Telecare service provides a range of options for monitoring or call-out designed to help elderly or vulnerable people to continue living independently.

A report for Dudley’s Adult Social Care Select Committee proposes an increase of 9.88 percent to the cost of a monthly subscription to cover rising costs and a drop in users.

The proposed increase, which needs to be approved by councillors, would come into force in April 2025 and push the monthly cost up from £21.30 plus VAT up to £23.40 plus VAT.

The service, which is currently switching from analogue to digital technology, has taken a hit from losing users after a 50 per cent reduction in charges for council tenants was removed.

The report says 163 council tenants left after the discount was taken away, although 20 new private clients were signed up.

Currently for the 2024/25 financial year the service expects to have 1,187 council tenants and 2,855 private tenants on its books having dropped a predicted increase of 15 percent.

The report says: “Telecare are currently managing the risk of the digital switchover for all active clients and therefore not actively promoting the service. 

“It is anticipated that the switchover will be complete by the end of the calendar year.”

Despite a predicted rise in income from private tenants, the loss of council tenants means the service is expecting a financial shortfall of £220,000 which it plans to offset by leaving vacancies unfilled.

Councillors at the meeting, on November 20, will also be told some users appear to be avoiding paying at all.

The report says: “There is ongoing work between accountancy and Telecare to ensure all customers in receipt of the service are paying. 

“There is a discrepancy at present between the number of active Telecare customers and clients billed. 

“We are cross checking data sets to understand why this is and ensure the data sets match up.”