Can everyone on the Death Star use the computers?

Why doesn't managing health matter to health organisations?

We've noticed that health organisations don’t rate teaching people digital skills to manage their health in their priorities as highly as other types of organisations. On average it’s a 3 out of 5. For Local Authorities, for example, it’s a 4. But until now, we've not understood why...

This quarter, 100% of health organisations list "their workforce" as people they want to help. For 50%, helping their clients/ patients is also important but for half, their workforce is their target. This fits with a couple of trends...

• All jobs now have digital touch-points: - whether you're a delivery driver or a cleaner you need some digital skills, to for example, to manage your shifts or read your pay slips.
• Traditionally, healthcare hasn't been very digital but digital skills have become increasingly important across the sector.
• Only 37% of people working the medical sector have the full set of Essential Digital Skills for Work. 

So it's not that that health care organisations don't value helping patients manage their health online but that they also understand the importance of training employees.

Can everyone on the Death Star work the computers?

Another growing trend from planner responses is the number of organisations working with people with a range of barriers to getting good digital skills. They might be older, have a learning disability, mental health problems or not speak English as a first language. 

We know (again from the Lloyds Report, read our summary here) that all these characteristics make it more difficult to have good digital skills. But it's interesting how few organisations are focussed on people with one, single barrier; how digital exclusion fits into a wider pattern of exclusion and how as digital evolves, it continues to exclude. 

When DU was starting up, someone told us is would never work as a business because in the future, everyone would be digitally included. All our customers would die of old age and everyone else would grow up knowing how to use technology.

This didn't happen. Digital inclusion is an evolving state. More things become digital -  and that tech can be more complicated to use. People can gain and lose skills. Gen Z is baffled by all sorts of digital technology – and like every other age group and industry sector, even “digital natives” don’t have the right digital skills training.

So even by the time we have space ships, sadly we'll still have have some kinds of digital exclusion. Some people on the Death Star won't know what all the buttons on their computer do. 

If you'd like to do our planner and get a free, personalised report on how a Digital Champions programme could helpyour organisation, it's here.