A vulnerable elderly couple who needed urgent medical help were cut off when British Telecom gave their telephone number to a window cleaning firm.

Dennis Ramsden, 93, and his wife Christine, 87, tried but failed to call for an ambulance after they both became unwell through long-term health issues.

When their son Nico Ramsden of King’s Road, Faversham, tried to contact them, he realised the line was dead.

He said: “I was connected to a window cleaning company with an entirely different number. There was no service or dial tone at my parents’ house.

"I discovered the window cleaners had signed up with Sky for their phone service and BT had assigned my parents’ existing number to them.”

Nico contacted BT to report the mistake and told them of the fragile health of Mr and Mrs Ramsden, and how they had been unable to call for an ambulance.

He asked them to reinstate the number as a matter of urgency, and was assured they would be given priority status, but says nothing was done.

He said: “On the same night the paramedics had to be called again for my father, and my mother had to go to a neighbour’s house to make the call.

"She was in a state of panic and felt cut off being unable to contact either medical help or family.

“I called BT five or six times over the next two days, only to be told that the matter was being progressed with welfare priority status.

“I was then told by the window cleaning company that their Sky line had been cleared on the next afternoon and was working normally on their original number. My parents’ phone was still dead.”

Nico discovered that a BT Openreach engineer assigned to the re-connection had only received instructions to attend that morning.

“My parents’ line was re-connected later that afternoon, nearly a day after the window cleaning company line had been restored by Sky,” he said.

“I want them to make sure that when a matter is afforded priority welfare status it actually receives immediate priority attention.

“I am appalled that Sky customers should have received better service than my aged and extremely vulnerable parents.”

BT spokeswoman Emma Litlejohn said: “We are still looking into this issue, but we do apologise if the service received from BT added to the distress of the situation.

“Openreach does not prioritise for different service providers and all parts of BT strives to provide excellent customer service and respond swiftly especially – for vulnerable customers.

“We are liaising directly with the customers’ son.”