Digital opportunities for women’s wellbeing: How femtech and other digital platforms can overcome barriers to health access

Digital opportunities for women’s wellbeing: How femtech and other digital platforms can overcome barriers to health access
Thrive September 2021

• Drawing on information from a literature review, survey and focus groups this white paper highlights the barriers which are stopping women accessing face-to-face health services and information. It spotlights three key themes: 1: Why concern about the quality of online information impacts how women use digital platforms. 2: How diverse authorship is key to providing higher quality, more relevant information. 3: The importance of understanding how women engage with digital resources in order to create platforms that meet female needs. 
• (“Thrive is a value-driven agency specialising in powerful health and behaviour change content, campaigns and programmes.”)

Planning and Evaluating Remote Consultation Services: A New Conceptual Framework Incorporating Complexity and Practical Ethics

Planning and Evaluating Remote Consultation Services: A New Conceptual Framework Incorporating Complexity and Practical Ethics
Frontiers in Digital Health, 13 August 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2021.726095

• Empirical findings have shown that decisions about remote consultation are fraught with contradictions and tensions—for example, between demand management and patient choice—leading to both large- and small-scale ethical dilemmas for managers, support staff, and clinicians. A novel framework, Planning and Evaluating Remote Consultation Services (PERCS) has been developed which focuses attention on the organizational digital maturity and digital inclusion efforts. The authors also present a set of principles for informing its application in practice, including education of professionals and patients.

Unlocking the digital front door - keys to inclusive healthcare

Unlocking the digital front door - keys to inclusive healthcare
National Voices, May 2021

• This report explores how the move to remote service models impacted people and how the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector (VCSE) has led innovative ways to deliver healthcare and support people during the COVID 19 pandemic. Also available is a literature review and insight data, personal narratives and recommendations for better practice, better policy, and better innovations.

Beyond Digital: Planning for a Hybrid World

Beyond Digital: Planning for a Hybrid World,
Select Committee on COVID-19, 21 April 2021

• In its report the Select Committee on COVID-19 warns that more needs to be done to ensure that we all benefit from our increasing reliance on digital technology post-pandemic and that it does not lead to increasing inequality and marginalisation.

Digital technology and Health Inequalities: a scoping review

Digital technology and Health Inequalities: a scoping review
Public Health Wales and King’s Fund 3 December 2020

• This report examines how a lack of access, skills and motivation for using digital technologies could contribute to inequalities in health and other outcomes, and explores approaches to reduce widening differences between groups.

Blueprint for a 100% Digitally Included UK

Blueprint for a 100% Digitally Included UK for a post-COVID-19 economy
Good Things Foundation September 2020

• “COVID-19 changed the dial on digital. At least 82% of jobs require digital skills. In England, the digital divide is also a north/south divide; 49% of people in the South East using the internet fully compared to 18% in the North East, and 31% in the North West.”

Internet access – households and individuals, Great Britain: 2020

Internet access – households and individuals, Great Britain: 2020
ONS latest update 7 August 2020

• Internet access in Great Britain, including how many people have internet access, what they use it for and online shopping. Based on a nationally representative sample of households in Great Britain. Includes:
• Table 6: Internet Activities, by Age Group, Sex and Disability Status, 2020
• "Looking for health-related information (eg injury, disease, nutrition, improving health etc)"
• Metrics added 2020 -
• "Making an appointment with a medical practitioner via a website or app"
• "Using other online health services via a website or app instead of having to go to the hospital or visit a doctor, for example getting a prescription or a consultation online"
• "Accessing personal health records online"

COVID-19 and the digital divide in the UK

COVID-19 and the digital divide in the UK
Lancet Digital Health v2(8) E395-E396, August 01, 2020

• This article discuss how the use of digital health technologies in response to Covid-19 unintentionally exacerbates existing health inequalities as access to such solutions remains unevenly distributed.

Digital Health Hubs

Digital Health Hubs: An evaluation for the NHS Widening Digital Participation Programme
Good Things Foundation June 2020

• The ‘digital health hubs’ strand is part of the NHS Widening Digital Participation Programme to test the hypothesis that "dedicated community locations with trusted people on hand to guide – can help socially and digitally excluded people to improve their online skills and access relevant information and tools (both online and in their local area) to improve their health and wellbeing."