From time to time, if we have not already got your needs logged, we will send out a text message or email asking you to confirm how digitally literate you are. The reasons that this is important for us to know are:
- We use appointment booking links for the majority of our appointments and clinics as 1, it’s much quicker for us to send out a booking link to multiple patients rather than having the manpower to phone everyone and 2, the booking link shows the variety of date and time availability on offer so that patients can choose themselves an appointment convenient for them. If you have told us that you are unable to use your phone or email to work the booking link, we will phone you instead (for mass clinics, you will be put on a waiting list and we will phone you as soon as we have capacity to do so).
- NHS Dorset provide access to a variety of digital information, online events etc & so if they ask us to promote this to our patients, we will only promote it to patient we know can use the internet etc.
- Due to demand across the NHS, we are having to work smarter, and so clinicians will text you results or information as it’s a much quicker way of working. If you’ve told us that you cannot use your phone for anything other than phone calls, we will endeavour to ensure your message is passed to you verbally instead by our admin team.
- Sometimes, we have a large amount of information that we need to get out to patients, and with rising postal costs, it isn’t possible to send out letters, so we will create pages such as this so that we are able to send links to patients who can then access all the information they need.
The different levels of digital literacy can be explained here:
- ABLE to perform information technology activities: You are able to receive and read texts or emails and can access links and websites either via your phone or a laptop/computer/tablet. Or you have someone at home that can help you to do this.
- DIFFICULTY performing information technology activities: You can receive and read texts or emails but you struggle with messages containing links or anything that asks you to use the internet. Or you may not have a smart phone so can only receive basic information. You will give it a go but may need help or prefer a phone call.
- UNABLE to perform information technology activities: You only use your phone for making phone calls. Or you do not have access to the internet. Or you are not digitally literate and cannot use/act on/perform digital instructions.