Designing digital inclusion in healthcare – where do you start?

At Good Things Foundation we are here to Fix the Digital Divide. We are here to help the 10 million people who lack the basic skills to be online and to help provide access to the 1 in 14 households who don’t have access to the internet at home, and the 2.5 million who are struggling to afford the internet.

Change is inevitable, the digital world keeps moving forwards and threatens to leave many behind.  Whilst only a few years ago the first point of call for healthcare information, booking appointments or finding out when you last had a vaccine was a telephone call to your local surgery or a face to face appointment with your healthcare professional, much of this has moved online. The pandemic drove this rapid change but this change is here to stay. Unfortunately those that are digitally excluded are also those that are the most likely to access health services. 

If their only way to get in touch with their GP is through an online form that opens at 7:30 in the morning and then closes as soon as they have reached their maximum for the day – how are those without a mobile phone or internet access supposed to access these services?

We know that people that are digitally excluded are most likely to also be socially excluded. They are more likely to be over 65, have a disability and overlap with other inclusion health groups. Many of us working with these groups that are excluded from the digital world have been exploring how to do digital well to help equality of access to services as more and more of our products move online.  

Thanks to the support of the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance we have been investing time and energy speaking with those that are excluded, exploring their barriers and testing ways that we can help remove these barriers for equality of access. We’ve gathered lots of learnings, developed top tips, checklists and guidance. But all of this learning is scattered across a number of reports, presentations and organisations.

In January 2024, Good Things Foundation are hosting a series of short virtual seminars drawing together these learnings.  Our aim is to help you navigate all the guidance and best practice. We will explore the barriers for certain groups, share learnings, case studies and examples of best practice from a number of VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance colleagues with expertise of engaging inclusion health groups and those that are digitally excluded. The aim is to help you build on their expertise rather than starting from scratch.

If you are interested, why not find out more. You can register for all 3 events, or just 1 or 2.  After the event we will make recordings available on our website and share learnings in the form of 3 key takeaways from each session to help you make the most of the insights and revisit them at a later date should you need them.

We really look forward to seeing you there!