Libraries in Ealing will be part of a new partnership with NHS England that is aiming to help more people access online health services and use the NHS App.
The initiative, in collaboration with The National Health Literacy Partnership, will launch in October 2024.
John Quinn, chief information officer at NHS England, and a former librarian said: “Public libraries are at the heart of our communities and offer a significant opportunity to reach those who face barriers when it comes to accessing their health information online. The NHS App has more than 34 million registered users and we want to ensure no-one is excluded from using this service.”
Mr Quinn added: “My first profession was a librarian, and it was amazing training for the role I do today. Librarians have always been at the forefront of providing services to communities and getting information to people at the right time.”
Louise Goswami, chief knowledge officer for the NHS in England commented: “We are delighted to see this development with libraries, which builds on the great work we already do with the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and public library colleagues, where we have trained 178 health literacy trainers in NHS libraries and run health literacy pilots at 14 public library sites.”
Ms Goswami added: “Through these pilots we learned that people were happy to be shown how to use NHS.uk by public library staff, so this phased rollout through public libraries will help even more people to access and make the most of their health information online.”
