Engagement, Education, and Empowerment for 1.2 Million Residents

Leaders in the Black Country Integrated Care System have deployed a HealthwaveHub creating a digital ‘place to start’ for people in the region.

Challenge

The project originated from the NHSx Beacon initiative, which identified the need for interventions to enhance the inclusive uptake and usage of the NHS App. The ICB conducted extensive engagement to understand key areas of support. These areas included a combination of Community Engagement, Education, and Assistance for Navigators who help others access services.

Solution

A comprehensive support system has been established for Navigators assisting others in accessing services, including the NHS App. This system provides simple access to upstream resources like device lending, digital skills training and data banks, as well as national, local and hyper-local support services.

This platform helps Navigators collaborate and easily share resources with the wider community. The efforts invested in community engagement and education have yielded promising results. The registration rate has seen a notable increase from 17% since the initiation of the NHSx Beacon project to 48% (May 2023).

Furthermore, the number of registrations per 1000 patients has also shown significant improvement, with rates regularly featuring in the top 3 in the country.

The project will continue in its efforts to support the inclusive uptake of the NHS App through community engagement, education, and ongoing support for Navigators across the full range of projects and services into the future.

"Working with Healthwave we asked thousands of people, as well as community groups, about how they were using the NHS App. Together we have developed a number of interventions to improve inclusive access to these digital services" - Stephen Cook, Digital Strategic Programme Manager, Black Country ICB