Millions of people in the UK don’t have the basic digital skills they need to thrive in today’s world. No individual, organisation, institution, or government is going to evade the essentiality of sustainable products and services with the human at the core. And healthcare is in no way immune from the emerging phenomenon.
IFB’s work with NHS Digital, now NHS ENGLAND, following the 2023 merger, aims to ensure that the NHS products and services are inclusive and crucially, that they are accessible, understandable and usable by everyone in the UK.
The work adheres to the Government’s Digital Service Standard and Video Game Research Framework.
Test & Trace with Community groups
The aim of this work is to understand the users, their behaviours, attitudes, and barriers and to access the difficult-to-reach and vulnerable communities in England.
Usability Testing
NHS website & App
To ensure that the content on the NHS App and website is accessible, understandable and usable by everyone.
The categories explored so far include:
- British Sign Language Users
- Learning disability
- Learning difficulty
- Vaccination
- LGBTQ
- Male contraception (Condoms & Vasectomy)
- Birth Mothers
- Black Asia Minority Ethnic
- Cognitive impairment
- Asians and South Asians
- Refugees and Asylum Seekers
- Black Caribbeans
- Birth Mothers
- Black Muslims
- Digitally Excluded
Access to Children’s medical records
Proxy Access
To give birth mothers access to their child or children’s medical records through the NHS App.
This would allow birth mothers to carry out tasks such as booking appointments, ordering repeat prescriptions and viewing the vaccination and medical records of their children and lots more.
Following research best practices and the guidelines set by the Government’s Digital Service Standard, it was essential for the NHS to talk to birth mothers to find out what they will need from a service like this.