Digitisation and healthcare: steps for ensuring equity of access to resources for better health

The shift towards digitisation in healthcare

Healthcare services in the UK are increasingly digitised, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. In primary care - the first point of access to healthcare for most - the NHS App as the ‘digital front door’ is increasingly promoted.

As part of our Digital Futures for Good conversation series, the recent discussion on digital transformation and healthcare highlighted how digital shapes access to health services, with implications for who does and doesn’t benefit from care and better health. 

Digitisation leads to unequal access to care

1.5 million people in the UK don’t have digital devices, 2.4 million households are unable to afford their mobile phone contracts, and 8.5 million people lack basic digital skills. 

We know that there are considerable overlaps between the groups of people who are at most risk of digital exclusion and those who face significant health challenges. Through our work with the VCSE Health & Wellbeing Alliance, we hear that vulnerable and minoritised communities may face worse health inequalities as they struggle to engage with increasingly digitised health services. You can catch up on our latest seminar series Designing for Digital Inclusion in Healthcare with the Health & Wellbeing Alliance:

Seminar 1: Exploring the intersection between digital and health inequalities

• Download the slides for seminar 1
• Watch the first seminar on-demand

Seminar 2: Barriers that exclude people from digital health services, and how to remove them

• Download the slides for seminar 2
• Watch the second seminar on-demand

Seminar 3: Designing inclusive digital healthcare services - lessons and principles

• Download the slides for seminar 3
• Watch the third seminar on-demand

Designing digitally inclusive services

In our recent Digital Futures For Good conversation, panellists emphasised the need for inclusive service design in healthcare (and beyond), recommending that digital exclusion is embedded in equality needs assessments for new services.

Panellist Dr. Minal Bakhai of NHS England, and practising GP, talked of the NHS commitment to maintaining choice around how people access health services and the importance of providing different channels for access to care, and ensuring parity between these, for meeting diverse needs. Katie Dowson, Director of Digital for South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, stressed that we “need to really understand our local population, and not have a one-size-fits all approach”.

Good Things Foundation and the NHS have developed a framework for inclusive health service design, providing practical suggestions to avoid additional barriers for the digitally excluded.

Opportunities for better health

The discussions in the Digital Futures For Good episode pointed to the potential for well-designed, inclusive digital services to improve people’s access to care - for example, freeing up resources for GP practices to better support those who need or prefer to use non-digital channels. Digitisation may also improve collection of health data, offering deeper insights into population health and giving people better access to information about their own health. However, ensuring equitable and consistent access to these resources remains a challenge.

Panellists agreed that digital inclusion support is crucial for broader health and wellbeing. Citing recent work from Promising Trouble, our Research & Evidence Director, Dr. Emma Stone, described digital inclusion as a “super determinant” of health, as it affects people’s access to multiple resources for wellbeing, including education, employment, housing and more.

There was acknowledgment of the work needed to get stakeholders to recognise that supporting digital inclusion can be a powerful preventative measure for mitigating against poor health outcomes and for reducing demand on the NHS.

Partnership working as a way forward

Improving the accessibility of an increasingly digitised health system requires collaboration beyond the NHS.

The Digital Futures For Good conversation highlighted the need for partnerships between health, local government, and other sectors to embed these values in service design and delivery. Our recent report on partnership working between local authorities and primary care highlights good practice for promoting digitally inclusive services. 

Panellists also called for more resourcing to support the voluntary and community sectors who play a crucial role in providing safe spaces to build digital confidence and capability. The National Digital Inclusion Network is an example of the vital work done in the community to support those who are digitally excluded to access services and resources for wellbeing. 

By continuing to ask the question of who is not accessing digital health (and other) services, we can push for more inclusive design. With partnership working and resourcing for community-based support, we can help to bridge the digital divide and ensure equitable access to health and wellbeing for everyone.