Good practice Imported

NHS Widening Digital Participation

United Kingdom · Sheffiled · National · See the United Kingdom profile

Widening Digital Participation is a programme of work which aims to reduce digital exclusion in the UK and ensure people have the skills they need to access relevant health information and health services online. The target audience for this intervention is anyone who lacks digit

387470

People reached

5000

Online Centres (community organisations) in network

Pathfinder projects (Phase 2) (2017-2020)

Details

Maturity: Scaling
Promoter: Good Things Foundation — website
Type: System
Status: Ongoing
Target groups: Elderly people, Unemployed and those facing social problems, People with disabilities, Marginalised young people and children
People reached: 387470
Period: 2013-09-01 – 2020-03-30
Keywords: exclusion, digital, skills, eldery, unemployed

Context

NHS Widening Digital Participation is a UK programme, delivered by the Good Things Foundation and funded by NHS Digital, that builds a network of local Online Centres and the Learn My Way platform to help digitally excluded people -- especially older people and other disadvantaged groups -- access health information and services online. Phase 2 (April 2017-March 2020) funded 20 local Pathfinder projects, following Phase 1 (2013-2016).

Results

Programme materials report that participants gained increased confidence in using digital tools to manage their own health, which was in turn associated with fewer GP and A&E visits as users consulted online resources instead; this is a self-reported, pre/post outcome claim with no comparison group.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

MEDICI / Digital Inclusion Atlas — accessed 2026-06-14
Practice website — accessed 2026-06-14

Quality score: 76/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Observational / pre–post

Top 33% in this catalogue (610 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by MEDICI consortium

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Innovation level4/5

How novel the approach is, from the source innovation rating (graded 0–5).

Sustainability (ongoing)1/1

Whether the initiative is still ongoing rather than ended.

Evaluation evidence0/1

Whether a substantive evaluation of the initiative exists.

Demonstrated reach1/1

Whether the initiative reached a measurable number of people.

Documented learning1/1

Whether transferable lessons learned are documented.

Cite this

Evidoria. NHS Widening Digital Participation. Persistent ID: 935414e5-d22c-44c5-a508-6a72a35cd8da.

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