BT customers faced telephone outage after technical problems affected services across large parts of the country.

There was outage in West Lothian, Falkirk, West Stirlingshire, North Lanarkshire and the west side of Edinburgh on Monday morning.

People were advised to be extra vigilant of elderly or vulnerable family members and neighbours as their assistance alarms may not operate correctly.

Police also said that extra patrols were out with locals advised to use mobile phones to call 999 in an emergency or flag down any emergency service vehicle that is not using its blue lights.

BT confirmed the issue was rectified around 8.30am on Monday.

A BT Group spokesperson said: "A small number of customers in parts of Central Scotland may have been unable to use their landlines early this morning due to a hardware fault. All services were restored by 6.30am. Broadband and mobile calls were not affected and we're sorry for any inconvenience."