Agenda item

Mike Emery, CCG Director of Digital Health and STP Lead for the Digital programme, updated the Board on the work done by health services in Worcestershire on digital inclusion.

A report had been produced by Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit for the Primary Care accelerator programme around transforming primary care with technology such as the use of apps and video conferencing. The situation over the last few months had meant there had been a significant increase in the use of digital services and there was the risk that some of the community would be alienated by this. The report looked at how to identify hard to reach groups and how the use of NHS and self management apps would be promoted.

Digital inclusion looks at people’s ability to use digital devices, how easy ere the digital products were to use, as well as connectivity. Digital exclusion was a form of inequality and there was a strong link between digital exclusion and those who were socially disadvantaged with lower incomes, levels of education and quality of housing.

The Acorn classification which uses consumer data and demographics was used to produce a map of the most digitally excluded people in the county. This was shared with partners and can be used to see where support work was needed.

Various groups were already working to aid digital inclusion such as Worcester Housing Association holding drop-in sessions to help residents get online, relate were holding counselling sessions online and Community First were making use of village halls to hold digital sessions. Worcestershire County Council’s 5G pilot project would help with connectivity issues in the county.

An Action Plan was starting to be developed. It recognised barriers such as a lack of confidence, skills or motivation to engage with health services. The distribution of equipment such as Alexas was being considered as well as up skilling those who needed help with digital equipment as well as working with people who were isolated. It was noted that the report was largely written pre-covid but things had progressed since then and going forward partners would have to provide detailed plans for the STP on how this work would be progressed.

During the discussion various points were considered:

·       The Voluntary Sector wanted to know how they could help advance digital inclusion and were told they would like the opportunity to speak to groups to identify people they could work with to upskill patients or community groups and also to gain knowledge of where there was a deficit in terms of knowledge or connectivity

·       It was asked whether enough was being done in the short term to help people as it was accepted that things such as improving connectivity were longer term measures.

·       It was recognised that it was difficult to reach some groups such as the homeless, but GPs were aware of the most vulnerable adults

·       Ipads had been delivered to some care homes to enable residents to engage with family and health services

·       The delivery of services in new ways was being considered. For some people group therapy online was preferable to attending in person

·       It was questioned whether hard incentives had been used so that rather than trying to persuade and support people into using technology could they be offered a payment or other incentive? This work could be done along with the private sector. The economic impact of such incentives should be considered but after a cost benefit analysis it was likely that the cost of supplying equipment such as ipads to people to aid in prevention would work out to be much cheaper than treating people in hospital

·       The County Council had put up to £15million into improving broadband provision and had carried out a 5G pilot around Tenbury

·       The representative of the District Councils in the South of the County was disappointed with the report as ‘digital by design’ had been talked about for a long time but the report did not seem to cover some of the work already undertaken such as by groups such as Onside Advocacy and also social prescribing. She pointed out that providing hardware or funding for hardware was mentioned but often disadvantaged people could not afford broadband. She felt that important issues such as public wifi and language issues were not being addressed.

·       Covid had accelerated some of the work being done. There was also concern whether digital inclusion in health services was being integrated with social care services but Board Members were assured that Partners were working together and looking at population health management. Using digital methods were only used where it was clinically safe to do so.

·       Perhaps it should be possible for digital devices, and if need be, support for using it, to be prescribed

·       Public health had digital champions across Worcestershire and some of the Public health ring fenced grant could be used for advice and information.

RESOLVED that the Health and Well-being Board noted the findings from the Digital Inclusion review and noted that the recommendations were being taken forward through all work programmes where there was a risk that Digital Exclusion may prevent equity of access to health and care services.