NHS England has made resources to librarians available to encourage them to support its efforts in building digital health inclusion.
It has provided guidance on how they can help people to set up and use an NHS account and navigate the NHS App, long with promotional materials and a list of websites with trusted health advice.
This has come as part of the NHS England campaign to reduce health inequalities and in recognition of it being related to digital exclusion. Libraries are widely seen as having a significant role to play in helping to reduce exclusion by providing hubs for people to receive support.
In a blogpost, Dr Vin Diwakar, interim national director of transformation, and Professor Bola Owolabi, director of the National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme, said that digital exclusion now affects a person’s ability to look after their health and wellbeing.
Break down barriers
“By working with librarians we can begin to break down some of the barriers to digital health access,” they said.
“We want to provide library staff with the tools and support they need to help people access their NHS account either using NHS.uk or the NHS App. By empowering librarians, we can assist more people in managing their health online.
“This partnership has the potential to improve health outcomes by ensuring no one is left behind in the digital world. Libraries, already community hubs, are in a perfect position to help bridge the digital health gap and support better healthcare access for everyone.”
They also pointed out that, according to the 2023 Ipsos Veracity Index, librarians are the third most trusted profession, with 86% of the public trusting them to tell the truth.
