A council's response to a failure of emergency alarms worn by thousands of vulnerable people has been described as "incredibly slow and chaotic".

More than 2,000 people who wear the lifeline systems were left at risk following a power cut in November, it has emerged.

It took six hours for the service to be reconnected after it went down in stormy weather during the early hours but the authority then took more than a day to check every users' welfare.

Ashford lifeline allows people to live independently in their own homes by offering a personal safety alarm system, providing a 24-hour service.

A request under the Freedom of Information Act found Conservative-run Ashford Borough Council did not have enough printers to print off contact details of the elderly following the incident on November 23 last year.

One concerned resident said: "It is a story of delay, chaos and cock-up at Ashford Borough Council.

"While the system failure was not caused by the council in any way, its response to deal with the subsequent need to contact all users of the service to confirm their welfare was incredibly slow, chaotic and disorganised.

"Just the decision to start telephoning, then visiting service users, took more than five hours to make, with a subsequent delay of another couple of hours trying to access then print users contact details."

As well as the elderly, other lifeline users include people with disabilities, vulnerable young people or those just discharged from hospital.

The Freedom of Information request also found a member of council staff had to go out and buy a new printer, and there were too few landlines available to contact lifeline users.

It also found some contact numbers were not up to date and staff had to use their personal mobiles to call vulnerable people.

The angry resident added: "When the small group of call handlers and other officers moved down to the emergency centre to deal with the incident, there were not enough telephones to make the calls and lists of telephone numbers to dial were unavailable.

"It was 12 hours after the system initially went off-line before the council decided to ask for help from the emergency services and volunteers, to complete their task of checking all service user's welfare.

"It was almost 17 hours before all local service users were accounted for and almost 27 hours before they were informed of the safety of all of the system users, including those located in Thanet, for which they were also responsible."

On its website, Ashford Borough Council says the lifeline service "provides an instant response at the touch of a button".

It adds: "The alarm is there for any emergency situation when you need some help.

"Despite the recommendation of the internal debrief that elected councillors should speak to the media, the story was still kept entirely private..." - resident

"By pressing your alarm button a signal is sent to the Ashford Lifeline call centre to be answered by our team of fully trained operators.

"Having over 25 years’ experience managing a community alarm service, you can be sure you and your loved ones are in safe hands."

Council press officer Mark James drafted a media release to send to the press but the authority - which was placed into emergency mode during the incident - kept the incident quiet.

The press or members of the public did not know the failure had happened.

In his draft release which was never sent to the media, Mr James quoted Cllr Brad Bradford, saying: "This was an exceptional set of circumstances that highlighted an issue with the capability of the council to deliver this vitally important service.

"That it failed for any period of time is unacceptable.

"It is right that we say publicly this happened as we fell short, even though on this occasion it was fortunate that no one was seriously ill (HOPEFULLY THIS IS THE OUTCOME).

"It is important that we now reassure people that steps are in place to ensure this will not happen again and that the service can be delivered continuously, as designed."

The angry resident said the situation should have been made public.

They said: "Ashford Borough Council kept tight control of the story, with staff and volunteers instructed very firmly to not tell anyone or post anything on social media.

"Despite the recommendation of the internal debrief that elected councillors should speak to the media, the story was still kept entirely private.

"It was only made public following this FOI request, some five months after the event."

In drafts of a document prepared by Mr James to inform elected councillors of incident, the following changes were specifically requested by Sheila Davison, the council's head of health, parking and community safety:

· “A prompt decision was taken by officers to contact each and every one of the customers” was amended to “The decision was made…”.

· “An urgent review has been made of the system” was amended to “system checks are being made”.

· “We fell short but are fortunate that on this occasion, it was no more than a lesson learnt” was removed completely.

Ashford Borough Council confirmed how strong winds overnight caused power issues at the building that houses the authority's lifeline service on November 23.

It said that between 4.29am and 8.28am hours, there were intermittent losses of power to the whole building.

Lifeline involves a number of hardware and software elements each of which were protected by individual uninterruptible power supply systems, but one of these failed.

Cllr Brad Bradford, portfolio holder for community safety, said: “We were alerted to the problem after roughly three hours and action was taken to rectify the power issue within an hour of this.

"There was no sign that the lifeline system was not working during this time, but because we could not be certain that a call had not got through council staff acted swiftly to telephone every customer to check on their wellbeing.

“If they were unobtainable, their back up contacts were called, including family members, friends and neighbours.

“In 14 cases where neither the resident nor their back up contact could be reached, the decision was taken to enlist the help of the voluntary sector to drive to the homes of those people to check on them in person.

“All but three residents were contacted within 12 hours of us being alerted to the problem.

“As a result of the council’s response to the disruption to power supplies, which also affected countless other homes and businesses, everyone who uses the lifeline service was accounted for and found to be safe and well."

Following the incident, a new single uninterruptible power supply system was installed.