How to make your Practice Digitally Inclusive

Digital systems are the foundation upon which we will build a modern, efficient and responsive health service. Enabling information to flow between care providers within and beyond organisational boundaries, and between care providers and patients, is a key means by which we will achieve a safe, convenient and personalised health and care service.

GP IT systems sit at the heart of primary care technology facilitating and recording millions of interactions with patients every week. GP practices have led the way in the move from paper to digital record-keeping and are now well on the way to offering online transactions, such as appointment bookings and repeat prescriptions, across all practices in England. Since April 2015, all practices have been required to offer patients access to online GP services. Latest data shows that 15.1 million people are registered to book their GP appointments, order their repeat prescriptions and view their health records online.

We have seen a rapid transformation within digital healthcare in the last few years that has been accelerated by the pandemic.

Digital healthcare has brought many advantages to patients, for example being able to view a medical record, submit an online consultation, hold a video consultation, find out self-help information and self-referrals via a practice website as well as order medication online. Patients using these services have found their access to healthcare has increased and is more flexible, in line with a more digital national health service.

However, for many patients, Digital has proved to be a further barrier to accessing healthcare.

Some patients may not have access to devices, they may not have access to data, or they may not have the necessary digital skills to be able to access their healthcare digitally. Digitally excluded patients are also at higher risk of health inequality and their health has been further disadvantaged by this rapid transformation of digital healthcare.

Workshop Outcomes

The key objective of this web workshop is for non-clinical staff to understand the advantages of a digitally inclusive practice. This session includes an in-depth look at all those online resources available within practice to streamline access to healthcare for patients and streamline workload for a more efficient practice. The workshop also provides information on understanding the local population and additional support on how to access digital services for diverse groups, and maximising and promoting the use of e-services to inform these patients of the changes beneficial to them and their health.