Digital

What is it?

The National e-Learning offer provides a range of live, recorded and supported learning resources to support practitioners in delivering remote learning.

Who is involved?

Education Scotland, Regional Improvement Collaboratives (RICs), the Scottish Government and councils.

What did they do?

When schools closed in March 2020, schools, teachers and councils moved quickly to providing remote learning. Education Scotland supported this shift nationally, making resources available online through GLOW, the national digital platform for remote learning. There was wide variation in the use of GLOW.

Education Scotland, RICs and councils have been working in partnership to develop more comprehensive and coordinated national resources and support. The National e-learning offer is hosted on the National Improvement Hub and brings together:

• Live, interactive lessons through e-Sgoil (a service developed by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar)
• Recorded content for learners to use as directed by their teacher (developed by the West Partnership)
• Support and training materials and events for teachers to deliver remote learning (provided by Education Scotland and CERG Workforce Support workstream).

The CERG Workforce Support workstream also shares learning and best practice, for example through the weekly Scotland Learns Practitioner newsletter, and helps provide peer support for teachers through initiatives such as ‘Big Blethers', informal online gatherings for teachers across the country.

What went well and what were the challenges?

Leadership and collaboration: Partnership working led to more coordinated national support for remote or blended e-learning.

Digital workforce: Training and support for the workforce to deliver remote learning including sharing learning and best practice.

Digital exclusion: Pupils living in very challenging circumstances have been most affected by the impact of school closures. Access to devices and broadband was a significant inhibitor to remote learning, as was parental knowledge and understanding of the various platforms used by schools. The Scottish Government invested £25 million in reducing the number of children and young people in digital exclusion. At December 2020, £24 million of the £25 million for digital inclusion had been allocated to councils. Of the original target of 70,000 devices, just over 72,000 had been provided to learners by end of June 2021, along with just over 14,000 connections. However, there are still people and communities that do not have access to an affordable or reliable internet connection. Good internet connectivity is a challenge for some councils, particularly in rural areas.

Source: Improving outcomes for young people through school education; communication from the Scottish Government - Opens in a new window.

What is it?

A Scottish Government programme to support vulnerable people in Scotland to get online.

Who is involved?

Connecting Scotland is a partnership between the Scottish Government, councils and the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO). It’s supported by a range of local, public and third sector organisations.

What did they do?

Launched in May 2020, Connecting Scotland aims to tackle digital exclusion and support citizens to get online and access the services they need. The Scottish Government initially provided the programme with £5 million, to buy devices, data packages and provide basic digital skills training to 9,000 individuals at risk of isolation because they were on the Covid-19 shielding list.

In August, a further £15 million was made available to help 23,000 more households get online. Disadvantaged families with children and young people leaving care were prioritised. These families were given a device, twelve months unlimited data as well as linked up with a Digital Champion to provide six months of training and support over the phone. Families were identified by councils and third sector organisations, who then applied on their behalf.

Since then, the programme has been extended twice to support different target groups, including older people and people with disabilities. To date, £48 million has been invested with the aim of supporting 60,000 households by the end of 2021.

By June 2021, 36,000 devices had been delivered to households. Almost 600 organisations and all 32 councils have received support from Connecting Scotland.

What went well and what were the challenges?

Collaboration: Cross-sector collaboration and partnership working was an enabler for the development and delivery of the programme. The model – using voluntary and public sector organisations as trusted intermediary bodies – worked well in terms of identifying and reaching programme target groups.

Digital workforce: Digital Champions have had a difficult task providing support remotely (over the phone) during Covid-19 restrictions. The use of visual aids, such as YouTube videos on how to use the different devices, was proven to be essential to support their work.

Technology: Initially data packages were limited to 20Gb per month but this was found to restrict full use of a device. Since phase two unlimited data packages have given users more freedom to use devices without monitoring usage. Individuals have ownership of the device, rather than a loan.

An evaluation of the programme was published in February 2022 and made a number of strategic and operational recommendations for the future of the programme. The Scottish Government is considering these.

Source: Scottish Government, SCVO and Digital progress in local government.

What is it?

Near Me is a video consulting service used to facilitate remote consultations between patients and clinicians, clients and service providers, to improve access to health and care, with plans to extend it to other public services.

Who is involved?

It is led by the TEC (Technology Enabled Care) Programme within the Scottish Government's Digital Health and Care Directorate. Initially trialled in the North of Scotland, it was rolled out across primary and secondary care, as well as social care settings across Scotland. The programme has now been piloted with housing associations as part of plans to extend its use to social landlords and other public services in Scotland.

What did they do?

Building on the success of the early adopters, in November 2018 TEC launched a £1.6 million challenge to support wider rollout of Near Me across all health boards. In March 2020, TEC launched a 12-week scale-up plan to support rapid deployment of Near Me services to maintain some level of service provision during the pandemic. This included targeted support for priority areas such as Mental Health, GP practices and care homes.

Use of the service rose from less than 1,000 consultations per month in February 2020 to almost 70,000 per month from June to September 2020. Hospital and community care services accounted for over 75 per cent of activity, with mental health services constituting over a third of this. Few GPs had embraced Near Me before the pandemic but around two-thirds did during the first lockdown. As the first lockdown eased, hospital and community use of Near Me continued to rise, while GP activity fell back with only around a third of practices continuing to use it, with telephone consultations preferred.

Uptake was lower in care homes due to connectivity limitations but care staff who did use it were generally very positive. An initiative has been launched to facilitate digital inclusion for residents in care homes - a collaboration with TEC and the Connecting Scotland Programme.

What went well and what were the challenges?

Patients and professionals surveyed found video consulting beneficial for both during the pandemic (eg, infection control) and longer term (eg, reduced travel times). Patient satisfaction was generally positive. Technical performance and call quality had a significant impact on patient-reported outcomes. Clinicians reported that video calls are clinically appropriate in certain circumstances but not others (for instance for rare/less predictable conditions or where physical examinations or medical tests are needed).

Leadership: Having national-level commitment and groundwork facilitated rapid adoption.

Digital workforce: It was a huge shift in working routines both for administration (eg, managing patients with entry to the virtual waiting room) and clinical staff. Good support was provided for technical set-up, and guidance and training for staff that was grounded in lessons learned from earlier roll outs.

Collaboration: Taking a quality improvement approach to continually monitor and adapt to rapid scale up. Having a large number of people from across many quality improvement teams helped support engagement, training and service implementation.

Technology: Having a single national platform and branding helped rapid scale up. There are still some challenges with infrastructure to enable video calling.

User focused / Digital access: Professionals had some concerns related to digital access and health inequalities, and lack of privacy within a patient's home. Reasons for limited use in GP practices included the varied case mix seen in primary care and the challenge of incorporating the technology into time constrained appointments. Further work is needed to better understand how best to embed video consulting into GP routines.

Audit Scotland reported more broadly on digital health innovations in our NHS in Scotland 2021 overview report - Opens in a new window.

Source: NHS in Scotland 2020 - Opens in a new window and Evaluation of the Near Me video consulting service in Scotland during Covid-19, 2020, communication from Scottish Government, The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations - Opens in a new window.

What is it?

Aberdeen City Council's digital transformation allowed it to respond well to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Who is involved?

Aberdeen City Council, working closely with its business partner.

What did they do?

In 2016, the council approved its digital strategy 'Being digital', 'to change how we do business to meet outcomes and customers' expectations through digital solutions'. The strategy focuses on three areas: improving customer services, improving staff experience and improving how resources are used. It is underpinned by six design principles:

• Design services with our customers at the centre
• Present easy to use, integrated and standard interfaces
• Build services, not just websites
• Hold information once and securely
• Use data well
• Make sure the foundations work

In 2019, the council began working with a business partner to maximise how it uses digital technology to improve services.

The council, working closely with its business partner, has substantially delivered on its digital strategy. For example:

• paper-based processes have largely been digitised and customers can now access more services online.
• new cloud-based systems have been procured to allow more mobile working and greater use of real-time data.
• a peer learning model has been adopted with over 500 Digital Champions, and a number of service-specific super champions, supporting employees to learn to use new technologies.
• a chatbot, AB1, has been developed to provide instant online responses to customer and staff queries. Queries related to bin collections, council tax, education or annual leave and payroll are now routed through AB1.
• Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has been implemented in several service areas, including education, finance and social care to remove routine tasks, releasing capacity for staff to support front-line activities. In Education services the equivalent of 14 FTE teacher's worth of administration was removed.
• digital initiatives and efficiencies have underpinned many of the £125 million savings delivered so far in the council's wider transformation programme.

The progress made in adopting digital practices, and the investment in cloud-based systems and devices for staff, meant that the council was well prepared to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. Within days, staff were working from home to keep essential services running and there was rapid update of video conferencing and messaging apps like Microsoft Teams. The council updated its chatbot AB1 to respond to high demand - approximately 200 individual queries per day - for Covid-19 information and it successfully responded to over 80 per cent of customer enquiries. The progress made against the digital strategy has also been beneficial for partnership working during the pandemic. There is now greater sharing of data between Community Planning Partners and work is ongoing to further develop collaborative data sets to inform how services can be targeted to meet demand and customer requirements.

What went well and what were the challenges?

Leadership: Clear vision. Commitment from leadership to embedding the cultural changes associated with changing working practices. The council strengthened its digital leadership and direction to focus on communicating changes to staff, with staff surveys suggesting this has been effectively achieved.

Digital workforce: Large Digital Champions network in place to support staff. The council invested in digital leadership for its managers and engaged the workforce to understand their needs to improve adoption of technology. Staff trained by business partner to manage chatbot.

Technology and data: Decommissioned legacy systems and moved applications and data to cloud-based systems. Better use and sharing of data. Developed data sharing principles.

Collaboration: Established good working relationships with partners as well as knowledge transfer.

Innovation: One of the first Scottish councils to develop chatbots to automate initial customer and staff queries.

Source: Aberdeen City Council BVAR 2021 - Opens in a new window.