A seamless digital migration for the vulnerable
In 2025, the UK's digital transition threatened to disconnect vulnerable telecare users. I led a team at BT Group to design a North Star vision for the renewal migration experience, creating a blueprint to protect elderly and disabled customers.
By uncovering safety gaps through research, I established a human-centred strategy and a fail-safe system, ensuring national infrastructure shifts never compromised life-saving emergency connectivity.
In the UK up to 2M vulnerable people were at risk of losing emergency phone line connection
The digital upgrade introduced significant risks for vulnerable customers, including the elderly and disabled, who rely on analogue lines for critical telecare services like pendant alarms and lifeline monitors. Recognising the potential impact on their safety, I focused on designing solutions to ensure uninterrupted connections during the UK-wide transition.
To understand the full scope, I spoke directly to telecare users and engaged with insurance companies like Aviva and AIG to learn what steps they were taking for the migration. To my surprise, many were doing very little or had limited knowledge of the risks. This realisation gave me a deep sense of responsibility to ensure these customers wouldn’t lose access to life-saving services — as the threat of losing connectivity could have life-threatening consequences.
I developed CareLink's programme interfaces in partnership with Openreach's technical architects
Working in close collaboration with Openreach’s technical architects, I built a catalogue of compatible telecare devices within BT Business’s backend system — securing buy-in from key stakeholders across the programme.
A key strategic decision I made was centring the solution on CareLink’s API innovation, enabling telecare customers to easily check whether they required an engineer visit to secure their connectivity. The simplicity of this approach not only met user needs but also streamlined the process for both customers and support teams.
This diagram outlines how I designed the new APIs to function, ensuring the telecare device checker could operate smoothly — crucial for maintaining uninterrupted service throughout the UK-wide network upgrade.
Enhanced agent support & prioritised care
The concept for CareLink centred on transforming the agent desktop by introducing the ability to tag and categorise vulnerable customers, enabling BT agents to deliver more personalised support. This development streamlines workflows and lays the foundation for a smoother transition to digital landlines, ultimately enhancing future services for both residential and business customers.
Keeping our vulnerable customers connected and protecting their safety is critical as we create new digital products and experiences.
Tim Carter, BT Design Lead
Key Features
I designed a user-friendly in-app experience to guide vulnerable broadband customers through a critical digital line upgrade. The solution includes:
Home Screen Alert — A prominent widget informing users about the migration and its implications.
Onboarding Explainer — A clear, step-by-step guide walking users through the upgrade process.
Device Checker — API-powered compatibility checks to confirm whether existing telecare devices would function on the new digital line.
Engineer Booking — A seamless booking flow triggered automatically for customers with non-compatible devices.
Confirmation & Next Steps — Appointment confirmation with contextual follow-up guidance, including responsible disposal of legacy hardware.
This end-to-end approach ensured a supportive, anxiety-free experience for one of BT’s most vulnerable customer segments.