Digital Notts’ community and voluntary service (CVS) Collaboration project aims to partner with local community groups or CVS organisations across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, looking to embed digital skills support into their work.
In April 2024, Newark and Sherwood CVS were successful in gaining £5,000 funding to collaborate with Digital Notts’ Digital and Social Inclusion Workstream.
With support from the fund, they have been able develop and test scalable digital support models. Through this Newark and Sherwood CVS have been able to support many residents. This is David’s story.
David has been benefitting from the support of a Digital Health Champion for a number of weeks, helping him to use the functions of his phone and access the NHS App to help him take ownership of his health and wellbeing.
David is a longstanding member of our weekly friendship group in Hawtonville Newark and was keen to join to help tackle loneliness and isolation.
David has been very enthusiastic about accessing support from the Digital Health Champion who attends the group because he had a lot of things he wanted to do on his phone.
Firstly, David wanted to know all the different ways he could send pictures of his garden to his friends because he was very proud of the plants he had been growing. His Digital Health Champion introduced him to WhatsApp which he now uses frequently to contact friends and family; he has even started sharing photos he has searched for on Google.
Another important skill David wanted to learn was how to find bus times and journeys because this is his main form of transport. David is now adept at finding bus timetables online and is using the bus more to access more services than before. Finally, the function that David really wanted to learn was the notes application on his phone. He was keen to learn how to use this to ensure that he was able to remember important ideas and tasks he had to do.
After David became confident with these features, his Digital Champion showed David how to download and use the NHS App.
David admitted that without the support of a Digital Health Champion he wouldn’t have thought about using the NHS App. For this, David had to learn how to connect to the Community Centre’s Wifi and use his phone’s app store.
The Digital Champion guided David through the process of signing up for the NHS App and David is now able to access it independently. David was shown all of the features of the app available to him, especially his Health Record and previous appointments.
David was particularly interested in how he could look at and manage his repeat prescriptions on the NHS App because it would save him having to travel to from his home into the town centre
Newark and Sherwood CVS has provided support and leadership for the voluntary sector for over 30 years. Their aim is to improve the quality of life for people living in the Newark and Sherwood area, making the district a great place to live.
Due to the success of their phase 1 targets, Newark and Sherwood CVS are moving onto phase two in the coming weeks. The project will continue for a further six months, where they will continue to support local residents to understand further benefits of the NHS App.
To date the CVS collaboration project has worked with a total of 11 organisations since 2020. Throughout this time, we have awarded £85,000 worth of grant funding to support digital skills and confidence building for our local population in the heart of their communities.