The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is the membership organisation for Scotland's charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. Charity registered in Scotland SC003558. Registered office Mansfield Traquair Centre, 15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh EH3 6BB.
The Impact of Digital Poverty on Access to Healthcare and Wellbeing Services
The digitisation of healthcare services is often reported as a solution to barriers to health and wellbeing services. For example, the Near Me video consulting platform can save patients from having to travel to appointments. But there is a presupposition when solutions such as Near Me are suggested as solutions for patients that the patient or service user has firstly got access to a device with an operating system that can support the software and secondly that the patient has reliable Wi-Fi at home. This is one of the reasons why broadband needs to be considered as the 4th utility.
Public Health Scotland’s Digital Strategy published in April 2021 has four main digital priorities. These are:
- engaging and empowering the public
- creating actionable insight across the public health system
- leading digital collaboration
- accelerating digital innovation for the public health system1
Public Health Scotland does recognise that digital solutions are not for everyone and always offers alternative solutions, but there is the assumption that this is an issue for the older demographic, the over 75s. But what happens if the patient is a child from an impoverished or challenging household? What can be done to empower communities to utilise these digital solutions? And just whose responsibility, is it? With the cost-of-living crisis permeating households, families are having to choose between data or dinner.
The range of digital assets being developed such as websites, social media, and mobile apps is growing exponentially. Imaginative resources such as Dundee Health and Social Care Partnership’s Whole Systems Approach to Child Healthy Weight are being developed. This project is utilising a digital platform called Kumu to map all the services in Dundee offering free or cheap healthy food. It is hoped that this map might evolve into an app that allows the user to locate their nearest provider. However, there are more than 600,000 people in Scotland who do not have a smartphone and more than half a million who do not have the Internet at home. Furthermore, 40% of people who had never used the Internet in January 2021 described themselves as having little or no formal education.2
Of course, ultimate fiscal responsibility for digital inclusion does lie with the National Government. But to facilitate a joined-up approach, there is distinct scope for multi-sector national cooperation to promote digital inclusion in health and social care. This can include schools, libraries, community centres and GP surgeries, and although there can be workforce capacity issues, the third and voluntary sectors have always been strong in their responses to crisis and to supporting the NHS, particularly during the pandemic. Looking at access to digital technology and resources as a whole of community responsibility is essential to combatting exclusion. Support for those who are digitally excluded to use innovative services such as the app being created by DHSCP is coming from the third and voluntary sectors. With the recent life expectancy downward trajectory in Scotland showing a difference of 7.8 years for females living in the 20% most deprived compared to those in the 20% least deprived areas, it is more important than ever to level up access to digital healthcare and wellbeing services in Scotland. This is why the Scottish Government's Digital Health and Social Care Strategy is committed to working with Connecting Scotland to ensure everyone is supported to access the devices, data and support they need to be able to use digital technology.
[1] Public Health Scotland, https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/our-organisation/digital-strategy-summary/
[2] ONS Figures 2021
