Supporting our workforce to be confident and competent with digital transformation so they embed change and can better support the people they care for.
With digital technology and innovation playing an increasingly important role in the delivery of health and care, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated care System requires a digitally competent, confident, and enabled workforce.
National research (HEE and others) and local discovery activity has identified a range of issues and concerns which affect the levels of digital engagement literacy within the workforce; this creates barriers to learning and engagement for individuals and staff groups and stifle digital innovation. These include:
- Individual lack of confidence and unwillingness to engage.
- Lack of leadership to engage and senior modelling of engagement.
- Lack of awareness of learning needs, time to undertake online learning or explore new technology, limited access to relevant training material, and poor experience when there is engagement.
- Organisational policy and associated investment in the user experience to improve productivity and support wellbeing in the workforce.
- Specific factors (such as job role, educational background, connectivity etc) limiting opportunity to engage.
Digital literacies are the capabilities which fit someone for living, learning, working, participating and thriving in a digital society.
Becoming a digitally literate person involves developing those function skills, plus attitudes, values and behaviours that can be categorised under the following elements or domains:
- Digital identity, wellbeing, safety, and security
- Communication, collaboration, and participation
- Teaching, learning and personal/professional development
- Technical proficiency
- Information, data, and media literacies
- Creation, innovation, and scholarship.
Being digitally literate across a range of domains to proficient levels helps us more easily acquire other skills and competencies in life.
“Digital Literacy: towards a definition; Health Education England”
Figure 1. Health Education England’s digital capabilities: the six domains. Adapted from Jisc Digital Capacity Framework (2015) Jisc/Helen Beetham
The Digital Workforce Programme is a workstream within the ICS digital transformation plan is addressing these and other issues under four headings:
Leadership & Culture
Ensuring executives and senior leaders set the right culture to improve and promote digital literacy in the workforce.
Digitally Enabled Workforce
Upskilling our workforce through development of a digital competency framework, digital champion networks, easy access to bitesize self-managed learning tools and resources and promoting digital inclusion across the whole workforce.
Design & Useability
Understanding and adopting best practice to ensure that user’s needs are front and centre of all digital transformation programmes by ensuring solutions are effective, efficient, and engaging to use.
Digital, Data & Technology (DDaT) Professionals
Support our digital leaders and their teams to further enhance their digital skills, building links with the NHS Digital Academy, Faculty of Clinical Informatics, and other professional bodies.
These areas map to the following NHSx ‘What Good Looks Like’ domains:
- Well-led
- Ensure Smart Foundations
- Safe Practice
- Supported People
Building a Digital Ready Workforce in Focus:
"We will support our workforce to be confidence and competent in using digital solutions to provide high quality care."
Improve Digital Competencies - We will improve the digital competencies of our workforce, at both an individual and organisational level, and with access to appropriate funding use assessment tools to regularly assess progress. This will enable snapshot views of our digital competency and evaluation of how our workforce are developing as well as which areas require most focus.
Create a Strong Digital Champions Network – The Digital Workforce Programme will support the development of a strong Digital Health & Care Digital Champions Community of Practice that will provide access to online training for prospective champions and help raise awareness of digital learning opportunities available to our workforce.
Enhanced Digital capabilities -We will provide access to learning opportunities to enhance our workforce’s digital capabilities. Localised e-learning tailored to the specific needs of our workforce will be run alongside access to a shared learning platform containing content developed around the essential digital skills framework.
National digital leadership training courses are available to our leaders to obtain the skills required to effectively lead digital initiatives.
Professionalisation of Data, Digital & Technology (DDaT) roles - We will drive the professionalisation of our dedicated digital workforce, promoting the need for lead professionals, career development pathways, attracting new entrants to the workforce, and adopting professional standards as they become available.
Working with our national and Southeast region colleagues we will collaborate to create a DDaT Workforce Plan that will focus on the following priorities:
- Recruitment – attracting new and diverse talent into the NHS and Social Care
- Retention – growing and retaining our own.
- Professionalisation – professionalisation of the DDaT workforce
- Leadership and value – commitment to digital, data and technology and realising the value of DDaT workforce.
- Tools – improve the tools for workforce planning.
Podcast: Plans to Transform the Digital Workforce:
Digital Design & Useability capabilities - We will undertake discovery and coordination work to understand the capabilities needed to create a robust and effective digital design and useability focused culture and promote this across the ICS.
Working to close the national workforce digital skills gap – a collaborative effort
FutureDotNow: Building a Digital Ready Workforce, A year in action.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB is a member of the free to join, FutureDotNow coalition of hundreds of organisations from across the UK from industry, public and the 
charitable/ community sector, all working to ensure that all working age adults have the skills they need to benefit themselves as individuals and as a workforce, the UK. They help organisations to understand the gap in workforce skills and provide tools to help drive change.