What support is available?

Key findings: The digital literacy, digital technologies skills and techniques currently being taught

Find out what support is available.

During the focus groups, it was identified that there is a distinct lack of support for both students and staff in using digital technologies and developing digital literacy and digital skills.

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We automatically assume people can use technologies, but we need to recognise that people don't naturally have these skills.
Participant from focus group

This is exacerbated by the assumption that students are already digitally literate and competent, often because they are young.

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Although the department was digitally equipped, it was difficult to adjust as students stated there were too many assumptions about their digital knowledge.
Participant from focus group

Most staff at higher education institutions (HEIs) report in the survey that they were able to find the support they need to design education programmes using digital education (Figure 18). However, a large portion of staff also reported they could not which suggests further signposting of support is necessary to increase confidence.

A pie chart showing the response from staff at Higher Education Institutions who were asked the question: “Can you easily find the support you need to design education programs using digital technologies?” 68 said Yes 45 said No 3 said Don't know
Figure 18: Chart showing the response from staff at Higher Education Institutions who were asked the question: “Can you easily find the support you need to design education programs using digital technologies?”

Most practice education facilitators also feel supported by their organisation and professional body to deliver digital health and care education (Figure 19). However, this was not reflected in the discussions in the focus group suggesting that some groups feel more supported than others.

Pie chart showing the response the response from both staff at Higher Education Institutions and practice education facilitators who were asked the question: “Do you feel supported by your own organisation and professional bodies to deliver digital health and care education?” 97 said Yes 37 said No 28 said Don't know
Figure 19: Chart showing the response from both staff at Higher Education Institutions and practice education facilitators who were asked the question: “Do you feel supported by your own organisation and professional bodies to deliver digital health and care education?”

This is evident when this is broken down by profession. For example, practice education leads responsible for orthoptics, and pharmacy students predominantly indicate not feeling supported by their organisation and professional bodies (Figure 21). In contrast, those responsible for midwifery and prosthetics and orthotics students feel they are supported (Figure 20).

The above chart shows if staff at Higher education institutes and Practice Education Facilitators feel supported by their organisation and professional bodies to deliver digital health and care education. The chart shows the combined responses from both groups, split into professions. The responses of “Yes, No and Don’t Know” have been shown as a percentage of the total responses for that profession. Please note that individuals from each group were able to select more than one profession if applicable to them. For the following participants, 50% or more of the responses said they felt supported by their organisation and professional bodies: All, Dietetics, Medicine, Nursing, Nursing Associate, Operating Department Practitioner, Paramedic Science, Physician Associate, Prosthetics and Orthotics, Psychology, Radiography- Diagnostic, Radiography- Therapeutic, Social Work, Speech and Language Therapy. 100% responses in relation to Orthoptics stated they did not feel supported by their professional body or organisation (however, please note that there was only one response in relation to this profession. Similarly, 55% of responses for the Pharmacy profession said they did not feel supported by their professional body or organisation (11 responses). For dentistry and anaesthesia associates 50% and 100% of responses said they did not know, respectively.
Figure 20: Chart showing if staff at Higher Education Institutions and Practice Education Facilitators feel supported by their organisation and professional bodies to deliver digital health and care education.

Participants in the survey identified a need for additional training as a theme in at least 20 responses.

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Making digital skills a core element of the undergraduate curriculum, taught and assessed throughout the programme, allowing students time to develop their skills and knowledge and reach the workforce digitally enabled.
Staff at HEI

Several participants in both the survey and the focus groups indicated that digital technologies education should be embedded in the curriculum to fully develop digital literacy. Additionally, the need for basic digital skills training was identified as a theme in at least 68 responses. Amongst practice education leads, eLearning and self-guided training were cited as the most common source of training and any other training provided was offered more informally.

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Support is very distant. As academics it is trial and error to learn how to use the technologies. The University offers courses, but these are just the basics of how to use and do not consider advanced use.
Member of professional group/regulatory body

Where support is available, it often comes from information technology (IT) teams. Additionally, library staff are commonly cited as sources of support, but many students and staff also reported feeling uncertain about where they could find additional support.

Page last reviewed: 10 May 2023
Next review due: 10 May 2024