‘Dear IPPR, digital exclusion is not a footnote’

Health is our greatest asset & digital is an enabler - yet it's being overlooked

Last week, IPPR launched a landmark report from the Commission on Health and Prosperity to the headline: ‘Health is our greatest asset’. 

It speaks to the direct links between health and wealth, regional disparities, the need to shift health policy away from a ‘sickness model’ towards ‘health creation’, and a whole of society approach to our health. 

But despite recognising the need to ‘fully understand the distinctly 21st century health challenges we face’, and despite advocating for ‘better use of digital, technology and innovation’, and despite making suggestions like using the NHS App to provide healthy food subsidies, there is only one reference to digital exclusion. And that is in a footnote on page 94 related to the role of libraries in providing internet access for digitally excluded people.

Digital inclusion is now essential for school, work, housing and more

Digital inclusion is a ‘social determinant of health’. This isn’t only about the NHS App, digital access to health care, and the benefits of health tech. Much more importantly, digital inclusion is is now essential for all those other things that create healthy lives. School, work, income, housing, community, social participation. 

I'm not alone in saying this. Check out Promising Trouble's report published in June. Listen to the ‘health’ episode of Digital Futures for Good. Watch our VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance seminars. Look up the sources in our updated guide on health inequalities and digital exclusion risks. Read Katie Dowson’s post on digital healthcare services in South Yorkshire and why we need to shift away from targets on NHS App registration towards a place-based and holistic approach to digital inclusion. Then look at the statistics in our new collaboration on ‘Digital inclusion: What the main UK datasets tell us’ - and you’ll understand why digital inclusion is vital for policy on health and wealth. 

Health and wealth

Health and wealth come together in Alan Milburn’s Pathways to Work Commission report, which was catalyzed by concern in Barnsley over rising numbers of working-age adults who are neither in paid work nor seeking work due to their personal circumstances. Often due to ill health, disabilities, low qualifications, and caring responsibilities. Barnsley’s employers cited digital literacy alongside work readiness, numeracy, and literacy as key skills gaps. Yet in a survey of people who would be described as ‘economically inactive’, only 28% of people had received any support with digital skills (they weren’t asked about affordable access to digital).

Embedding digital inclusion

Half of the people surveyed were interested in employment support. We know that embedding digital inclusion into employment support - in ways that are relevant to their lives and situations - can make a huge difference. Evaluation of place-based digital inclusion interventions shows the benefits of community learning, providing devices, and data connectivity. Across three regional pilots, 40% of people taking part were classed as ‘economically inactive’ and a further 44% were unemployed. As a result, 92% reported increased digital confidence; 44% felt their employment prospects were better; and 79% wanted to keep on learning. A similar story emerges of the value of embedding digital inclusion into health and wellbeing support. 

Here’s the thing.

Digital inclusion alone will not solve health inequalities or guarantee pathways to work but neither of these things will happen without digital inclusion. 

We need policy makers, think tanks, academics and analysts to lean in to what the datasets tell us on digital inclusion; to listen to those who feel left behind in a digital society; to collect vital (but missing) data to track how digital exclusion impacts on health outcomes and economic opportunities; and to recognise the value of digital inclusion for our nation’s health and wealth.