Improving access to digital technology could help reduce health inequalities, according to a new report.

The findings come from a three-year project on technology and health by the NHS’s Widening Digital Participation Programme. The project examined initiatives to break down the ‘digital divide’ which stands in the way of reducing health inequalities.

As part of the programme, 23 projects were set up in England from 2017 to 2020, delivered by NHS Digital and the social change charity Good Things Foundation. These tested ways of using digital technology to improve the health of disadvantaged communities, reaching 285,164 people. Examples include a digital health hub in Nailsea, Somerset, a project using tablets to highlight health issues in homeless people, a project in Leeds which loaned digital technology to people with dementia and their carers, and a Facebook promotion of breast screening in Stoke-on-Trent.

Director of the Widening Digital Participation Programme at NHS Digital, Nicola Gill, believes that internet access and digital skills are essential for people’s health and wellbeing. She explains that COVID-19 has further exposed the ‘digital divide’ as the increased use of digital technology in health care highlighted social and economic disadvantage.

The report, released on Monday (16 November), recommends a wider network of ‘digital health hubs’ to build digital health literacy and improve access to services. It also recommends that work to build digital skills in health care staff should continue, including networks of digital health champions.

Ms Gill said: “The pathfinder projects were developed around the principle of going to where people are, whether that was a GP surgery, a homeless shelter, a dementia support group or a cancer support network. If NHS commissioners, policy makers and designers of digital health services and tools can do just do some of the things recommended in this report, then hopefully we can start to narrow the gap of health inequalities.”