Building Healthier Communities: The Role of Digital Inclusion

15 October 2024

Thank you to all you joined us for this webinar, our second event for Cambs Digi Fest hosted by Sally Page, Deputy CEO at CCVS and Will Plant, Digital Inclusion Lead at Connecting Cambridgeshire!

We had some amazing guests!

Karen Igho, Project Manager at Healthwatch Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, shared findings on the impact of digital inclusion on health and care services.

Dr. Joyce F Coker from Cambridge Public Health at Cambridge University, shared preliminary results from their digital asset study that spans East of England, North West London, West Midlands, North East and North Cumbria.

Dr. Alison Tingle, Research Fellow at Hertfordshire University discussed the third and final briefing from a research project exploring digital technologies in adult social care to support social wellbeing for community dwelling older adults (DiTSoW).

You can view the presentations here:

Notes

Karen Igho stated that their researchers did some amazing work for this study. Healthwatch worked with the North Care Integrated Neighbourhood Team. Karen went on to explain the timeline and process of gathering data. She said the best responses were from people who spoke to the community researchers.

Key Recommendations from the Research.

• Enhancing digital accessibility
• Improving user-friendly design
• Ensuring flexibility in service delivery
• Providing education and training
• Improving integration and communication
• Ensuring updates and notifications are timely
• Improving accessibility for vulnerable groups
• Establishing a feedback mechanism and continuous improvement
• Addressing technical challenges
• Maintaining human connection

Karen said the Commissioners and ICB are taking these points on board moving forward and taking digital inclusion very seriously.

Karen again highlighted the importance of community researchers and said their local insight, cultural understanding and lived experience was crucial. They got into places and spoke to people that they would never have reached. They knew the community well and were culturally sensitive.

Karen said to always have a balanced approach when thinking about digital inclusion. Respect individual preferences.

Prioritise user-friendly design, flexible service delivery, and address technical issues.

Education, training, and commitment to maintaining personal connections are crucial.

It is best to create a future where technology enhances and not replaces human connection.

Karen concluded by saying that we need to be mindful of our diverse community and develop an inclusive and responsive digital landscape.

Dr Joyce F Coker said she’d been working on her study for 2 years and it focuses on the way communities use digital technology and the impact that has on people’s mental health.

• Community organisations had to innovate during the pandemic and use digital tools to deliver services.
• Digital technology can​ support mental health and wellbeing
• Digital technology is not accessible or useful to ​everyone because some people don’t have access to a computer/smartphone/internet and/or don’t have the confidence, skills or interest to use digital technology

They wanted the study to focus on people less likely to use the internet such as:

• Older adults (aged 65 years and older)
• Minority ethnic populations
• People with experience of poor mental health
• People living in low-income households or areas of deprivation
• People living with disabilities

348 members of the public took part in the survey. They had a good spread of ethnicity socioeconomic status, and 38% had a disability.

With older adults only 52% said they had access to the internet all of the time but 82% said they could look up websites. People struggled most with video calls.

Joyce asked the group what percentage people digitally accessed community services during the pandemic. The group guessed a high percentage such as 60% and 75%, the answer was actually only 35%!

Joyce said that the study is still ongoing, and they are now looking at loneliness and social isolation. Joyce also wanted to highlight the good work of the NIHR that will support with research.

Dr Alison Tingle then began to present her findings on the DiTSoW Study (Digital Technologies to support the Social Wellbeing  of older adults)

Alison said there is investment in digital technology in adult social care to support sustainability of social care systems, and the need to reduce loneliness and isolation but there is little focus on how this will be achieved. There is more focus on services rather than individual wellbeing.

Aim and Objective: Support and stimulate the implementation of evidence-based (evaluated) service change at national and/or regional level in adult social care and social work.

Method

• 24 interviews with professionals in social care
• 39 interviews/focus groups with older adults
• 2 knowledge mobilisation workshops

Alison said that public involvement was key to this project.

• Projects topics prioritised by practitioners, professionals, people with lived experience, and academics
• Strategic lived experience group for the National Priorities Programme for Adult Social Care and Social Work
• Each of the research projects sought local public involvement
• Evaluating the involvement of people with lived experience in the research projects across the National Priorities Programme to work out what works, for whom, and in what context

They found that technology is supporting social wellbeing, enabling people to live more connected lives.

• Access to the internet was broadening people’s communities enabling people to reach wider groups for services and their interests.
• Facebook was keeping them updated on what was happening locally.
• Technology was helping people live well at home independently with help with things like internet shopping.

Older people mainly mentioned private apps rather than funded social care apps.

A quote from one of their participants:

‘Well, they make my life more fulfilled, definitely more fulfilled, sort of stimulates your brain, increases your knowledge of things, increases your ability to talk to other people, have conversations about things…it’s basically enhancing the whole quality of your life really.’

However not everyone agreed and some found technology stressful; both learning digital skills and when things go wrong. People would also prefer to meet face-to-face rather than online. Going out into the community was better for wellbeing, mental health and exercise.

Alison then went on to explain factors supporting inclusion and also the challenges.

Supporting

• Personal resources
• Support from families
• Personalised training
• Seeing the value
• Confidence
• Familiarity

Challenges

• Fears of scams
• Technical language
• Fear of getting things wrong
• Infrastructure
• Pace and range of tech
• Personal choices

One participant said:

‘This is why I don’t like technology, because how it leaves me, and others like me. You feel like you’ve been shoved on the scrapheap, yeah?’

Alison said that there is a lot of excitement around AI in social care, how data is being used to better target care and support.

They held some knowledge mobilisation workshops and invited a range of stakeholders. They discussed:

• How to support digital inclusion
• Social wellbeing measures
• Co-production of digital technologies so the design is inclusive and easy to use

Alison concluded with Recommendations for Policy and Practice:

Digital Inclusion: start with what people want to do, raise awareness of what is available, good accessibility, address internet safety and still use non-digital routes.

Social wellbeing: Have a clear focus of measurable outcomes at the outset, develop routine data collection and explore further the role tech can play in developing the evidence base of technologies to support social wellbeing.

Co-production: tech should fit with what people are already doing, reduce complexity, develop collaboration between stakeholders and have adequate time and resources.

Discussion

Some interesting points were raised afterwards including:

• People may have devices but don’t have enough data to do things like participate in meetings.
• Services/professionals need to be mindful of each individual’s circumstances and abilities.
• Need for the balance between human and digital interaction
• We are pushing people into poverty if we don’t support them. Forced into going online and being taken advantaged of by providers. Penalised if don’t do certain things online.
• Good approach to do things with communities.
• Digital has done good but also harm.
• Need a ‘phone a friend’ service to help people.
• Digital inclusion not a ‘one off’ exercise. Things continuously moving and this needs to be considered.
• Need to understand barriers better.
• Digital services becoming worse for individuals and organisations. Rise in spam. People disconnect due to the dangers.
• Lack of resources. Passed to charities that don’t have the funding.
• Intergenerational projects work well.
• All organisations should be taking digital into account. Ask the right questions, signpost people to give them support.

Thank you to everyone who attended.

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