The NHS is committed to providing digital tools for patients, and the NHS App can make everyday healthcare simpler, from ordering repeat prescriptions and booking appointments to viewing your record and receiving messages from your GP surgery. But not everyone finds it easy to use digital health tools.
Coventry and Warwickshire is home to around 1.2 million people and includes a mix of towns and rural areas. It is also a very diverse area, with many different languages, cultures and levels of digital confidence. This means a one-size-fits-all approach does not work when it comes to digital health. Use of the NHS App varied widely between GP practices and among different communities.
The challenge
Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Primary Care’s Digital Champions team is commissioned by Coventry & Warwickshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) to improve digital access and help patients and practices feel confident using the NHS App.
There is a national aim for every GP practice to reach 65% NHS App uptake amongst patients. When our team started this initiative, uptake across Coventry and Warwickshire varied greatly, with some GP practices seeing only 40-50% of patients using the app.
Key challenges we needed to address included:
- Language barriers, with the app only available in English, excluding pockets of the population across Coventry and Warwickshire
- Accessibility issues for people with learning disabilities, visual impairment, or low digital confidence
- Reaching people who work, study or cannot attend drop-in sessions during the day
- Busy GP practices, with limited time or familiarity with the app to offer one-to-one digital help to patients
- Patients unaware of how digital tools could support them in managing their health needs
Our approach
The Champions focused on the biggest barriers stopping people from using the NHS App and put practical solutions in place. This included:
- Developing step-by-step NHS App guides in key community languages including Punjabi, Urdu, Polish and Nepali.
- Creating simple visual guides with screenshots and clear explanations, which GP practices could display on waiting room screens.
- Working with learning disability experts to make materials clearer and easier to follow.
- Creating information that met accessibility standards for font size, colour contrast and readability to support patients with visual impairments.
We then created a shared online hub where GP practices could easily access these patient-friendly guides, training materials and digital support tools.
Recognising that not everyone can attend weekday drop-in sessions at their local GP practice, the team actively arranged or worked alongside existing events which many people were already attending, including:
- Visiting factories and large employers within the area
- Co-ordinating with Men’s health events
- Community centres, warm hubs and village halls
- Vaccination clinics and local events
- Asylum accommodation setting, in conjunction with the named GP practice
- Universities and other education settings
At these events, the Digital Champions showed people how to set up and navigate the NHS App and website, explained how to order prescriptions, book appointments, and manage health on behalf of others (proxy access) at any time of day. They adapted materials on the spot when unexpected language needs were identified and helped people find other digital options if the NHS App was not available on their app store.
To reach more people and empower staff, the Champions trained other health and care staff including GP reception and practice teams, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, Patient Participation Groups (PPGs), social prescribers, health and wellbeing coaches and wider Primary Care Network staff. The ‘train the trainer’ approach helped staff feel more confident supporting patients with digital tools and ensured patients received clear and consistent advice across services.
The outcome
Thanks to this work, NHS App use across Coventry and Warwickshire has increased from around 57% to 67%, with some GP practices achieving uptake levels above 80%.
Patients have reported feeling more confident using digital tools independently. They are more comfortable using the features in the app to support their health and access the right care at a time that suits them. This can reduce the need for routine phone calls to GP practices and pharmacies to request repeat prescriptions or check test results, for example.
Communities that had previously been missed by digital services, including people facing language, accessibility or work-related barriers, received tailored support and what the team learned from one community was quickly shared and reused in others.
Moving forward the Champions are continuing to train more health and care staff, work closely with GP practices, Primary Care Networks and aim to focus on areas where NHS App use is still lower. As new features are released, the team will also provide tools and services to continue education and access.
This work will help ensure even more people across Coventry and Warwickshire can benefit from digital healthcare in a way that works for them.
To learn more about the work of the Digital Champions, visit Digital Champions – Coventry & Warwickshire Integrated Primary Care (IPC)
