Digital Health Learning in Leicester

The Cooke e-Learning Foundation works closely older people from the South Asian community to promote awareness of various health issues that affect them, such as diabetes, and helps them understand how ‘digital’ can be a useful tool to help manage their health and how to use the internet to interact with online health services.

The charity offers a wide range of informal adult learning opportunities and engages the local community in centre-based and outreach activities and through its wider community networks from local schools and faith venues to pharmacies, GP surgeries and local social housing providers. Once engaged, learners are encouraged to develop digital skills and become more empowered to manage their health, in parallel with other activities and learning they may be undertaking at the centre. Cooke e-Learning also hosts workshops from local health organisations such as Healthwatch, and the National Diabetes Research Centre at Leicester General Hospital, to raise awareness of specific health issues and integrates the use of online resources such as NHS Choices into this community engagement work.

Baz Kanabar, the Training Manager, recognises that language barriers often render online health resources inaccessible to people who do not speak English as a first language, despite efforts by websites like NHS Choices to provide translated content. He has gone to great lengths to build up a team of multi-lingual staff and volunteers to help learners overcome this important challenge for digital health literacy, while also raising awareness of the issue with content developers. He says “many learners find the NHS Choices website very helpful and are pleased they can access the information 24/7. They are keen to check information about their medications and appreciate the help from our bi-lingual health champions, who can engage with them in their first language”

Hansa Chauhan, aged 60, recently came to Cooke e-Learning to find out how she could use online resources to improve her health. Hansa suffers from psoriasis, and was looking for ways to help manage this on-going condition. She was shown how to use the NHS Choices website to discover more about psoriasis and, whilst she had used a computer before, she wanted to find how to improve her internet search skills to find particular information to help with treatment for her condition: “I went onto NHS Choices to find out more about psoriasis, the causes, and where I could seek help and advice. I’ve now discovered the Psoriasis Association, and the Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis Alliance (PAPAA), where I can read other people’s experiences of coping with the condition, such as changing my diet and trying alternative treatments”. She has now joined an online community allowing her to share her experiences and get help from others, which she has found to be really useful. Hansa was interviewed for the NHS Choices video (http://www.nhs.uk/Video/Pages/digital-inclusion.aspx) where she explained how the website was really useful in helping her to cope with the condition, finding new dietary information and explaining how others managed to live with psoriasis.