Sian Dickie, North East and North Cumbria (NENC) VCSE Engagement Coordinator at VONNE with contributions from Georgia Goncalves, Partnerships and Projects Officer at VONNE and Vicki Harris, Health Equity and Involvement Manager at Connected Voice reflect on the NENC Digital Inclusion Strategy Workshop. This event was led by Thrive By Design and supported by Connected Voice and aimed to engage a range of perspectives around Digital Inclusion with the goal of informing the NENC Integrated Care System (ICS) Digital Inclusion Strategy.
Background on the workshop…
- Thrive by Design and NENC ICS are actively engaging with communities across our region.
- The focus of this engagement is to explore the role of 'digital' in people's experiences of accessing and engaging with health and care services.
- Insights gathered from engagements are being used to shape the Digital Inclusion Strategy.
- A strategic plan is being developed to support the implementation of the digital inclusion strategy throughout the ICS area.
- The goal is to collaborate and ensure that health and care services with digital components are delivered in inclusive and accessible ways.
- This approach aims to cater to the diverse needs of individuals at various points in their health and care journey.
Digital Inclusion is…?
Currently, NHS Digital identifies three key areas which contribute to digital inclusion: digital skills, connectivity, and accessibility.
But, digital inclusion can sometimes be difficult to define as ‘digital’ can mean different things to different people. Similarly, everyone can have different understandings of inclusion and what this may look like, including the variety of accessibility requirements people may have in regard to this area. It is important that all partners recognise this mixed understanding when it comes to the area of digital inclusion.
On the day, there were a variety of stakeholders, beneficiaries, advocates, providers, delivery organisations, several VCSE organisations. Everyone all had different perspectives and understandings on the topic.
The benefit of this was that everyone brought and applied a variety of experiences, from their own perspectives or their beneficiaries’ to discussions on the day. This enabled an insightful discussion.
Thrive By Design recognised this during the opening of the workshop and highlighted the extensive consultation period which was taking place in order to inform the strategy. They highlighted that this would be ongoing across the region and via different partners.
Thrive By Design attended our VCSE Partnership Forum in September. The VCSE Partnership Forum enabled VCSE organisations from across the region to hear and give their perspectives about the strategy. They have also attended our NENC VCSE Neurology and NENC VCSE Ageing Well Sub-Groups, and will be attending further Sub-Group meetings via the Programme to engage specifically with different Communities of Interest.
The Newcastle and Gateshead event really enabled all partners to engage around the specific local context and provided the opportunity for local partners to join up with each other. The workshop provided an opportunity to be in a solution focused environment around Digital Inclusion.
Georgia Goncalves, Partnerships and Projects Officer, VONNE
I was really glad to be able to contribute towards the digital inclusion strategy since a lot of my project work has been centred around digital. It really highlighted for me the importance of VCSE sector organisations in helping people access health services and the role digital plays in this. To be able to best serve our communities we need to have a good understanding of digital. There should always be an offline option, but by developing our digital skills we can share our knowledge with beneficiaries where appropriate and build capacity in our organisations by making sure processes are streamlined during times where demand is at its highest.
One of the ways organisations can embed digital in such a way is by participating in the Digital Pathfinders programme. Through the programme organisations can receive fully-funded digital support through workshops, digital reviews and one to one support. To find out more about the support available, visit the VONNE website or drop me an email georgia.goncalves@vonne.org.uk.
Vicki Harris, Health Equity and Involvement Manager, Connected Voice
Connected Voice supported the planning and delivery of this event through our Digital Inclusion officer and I attended to help with the facilitation of discussions. It was a great to see so many people from the VCSE and statutory services there, all keen to look at how we can shape the policy for embedding digital inclusion in the ICB. A key point that stood out for me was the recognition that digital inclusion cannot be seen in isolation. We need to address the impact of poverty and health inequities as part of this remit to really give people equitable access to health services and better health outcomes.
Positive and accessible engagement
Thank you to the Thrive By Design and Connected Voice team who enabled everyone to attend on the day. The event certainly highlighted how to make engagement such as this, as accessible as it can be.