Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve digital (a) literacy and (b) confidence in NHS clinical staff.

We are striving for digital services to improve access, experiences, and outcomes for the widest range of people, based on their preferences, as any digital healthcare benefits will be limited if people remain digitally excluded.

Mitigating against the risk of digital exclusion is one of five key priorities that NHS England has asked the integrated care systems to address in their drive to reduce healthcare inequalities. NHS England successfully ran a number of programmes to support patients, carers, and health service staff with their digital literacy. These include:

• the NHS App Spoken Word Pilot project, designed to test the efficacy of promoting National Health Service digital health products and services in languages other than English;
• the Digital Health Champions programme, a proof of concept to support citizens who have no or low digital skills with understanding how to access health services online; and
• the Widening Digital Participation programme, aimed to ensure more people have the digital skills, motivation, and means to access health information and services online.

NHS England has also published a framework for NHS action on digital inclusion and is developing further resources to support practical actions and to build clinical confidence in using digital tools. All digital programmes are actively considering how they can contribute to improvements in healthcare inequalities and digital inclusion.