• What do we mean by digital health inequalities?
• The scale of digital exclusion in the UK
• The impact on patients
• Case studies of good practice
• How can we use these examples going forward

Recommendations for the Government and the NHS

• Engage with those digitally excluded 
• Ensure patients have a choice 
• Ensure the language is appropriate for all audiences
• Learn from good practice

Related reading

Digital health during the COVID-19 pandemic: Learning lessons to maintain momentum (February 2021)

• Knowledge of how racism manifests in therapy, psychology and society.
• Understanding the difference between racial justice allyship versus saviourship.
• Increased awareness of microaggressions in therapy.
• Appreciation of the importance of combatting systemic racism.

To access the full size version of the chart and to read the blog, please follow the link below. 

• why health literacy is important
• how to use some simple techniques to improve communication, including TeachBack, chunk and check and using pictures and simple language.

Learning objectives

• List the benefits of health literacy to individuals and services
• List health literacy tools and techniques
• Explain how to use health literacy tools and techniques
• Describe the impact of health literacy on people’s health choices
• Create a personal action plan to be health literacy friendly

Individuals

• More routine involvement of advocates from patients’ communities in healthcare interactions to reinforce communication and ongoing support in care
• Purposeful consideration of how the social background of a patient may dictate risk of harm from healthcare, and adjust management and follow-up plans accordingly
• Use of culturally and linguistically appropriate shared decision making tools to empower involvement of marginalised patient groups in their care and safety

Healthcare leaders

• Support a diverse healthcare leadership that pushes these issues into the consciousness of the workforce and mobilises the system towards meaningful action
• Race conscious approaches to healthcare education with greater emphasis on racism and discrimination (rather than race) as determinants of disease
• Systematised co-design of clinical services and clinical information with members of marginalised patient communities

System level action

• Avoid using systematically biased clinical prediction tools and algorithms unless clear empirical justification for race adjustment has been established
• Strengthen capabilities for stratified analysis of patient safety event reports according to important patient characteristics and the translation of these data into tangible action
• Clinical trials must recruit an appropriately diverse cohort, report relevant social determinant characteristics, and conduct relevant stratified analyses that determine effectiveness and safety of drugs and devices

• lack of communication and collaboration between primary and secondary care.
• the need for appreciation for the wider determinants of health and wellbeing that extend to the community and social care.
• poor transport links in the area.

Participants were grateful for the opportunity to discuss broader system level challenges and opportunities, rather than focus on segments of quality or performance data. The conversation benefited from the inclusion and participation of broad health and social care groups in addition to GPs.