Category Archives: internet

GPs should urge patients ‘to go online’

December 8, 2015   Carers, Featured Article, health, internet
By Hugh Pym Health editor

GP practice should get 10% of patients to go digital by 2017.

GPs should actively encourage patients to go online for booking appointments and ordering repeat prescriptions, according to a review of digital services in the NHS in England.

Baroness Martha Lane Fox, former internet entrepreneur and government adviser, wants the NHS to push forward with an IT revolution.

Her recommendations include ensuring every NHS building provides free wi-fi.

She says every GP practice should get 10% of patients to go digital by 2017.

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More than 12 million fall into UK digital skills gap

October 19, 2015   Carers, Featured Article, internet

 A survey of over 4,000 people nationwide to assess their skills

Rory Cellan-Jones  Technology correspondent 

Over 12 million people, and a million small businesses in the UK do not have the skills to prosper in the digital era. That is the warning today from Go.On UK, a charity set up to promote digital skills.

It has produced what it calls a digital exclusion heatmap, pinpointing the areas where people are most likely to miss out on the digital revolution.

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An iPad gave my son with disabilities a voice – and changed his life

July 18, 2015   Carers, disability, Featured Article, internet

Kevin is a changed guy.

For most of us, our voices emanate from our own vocal chords. For Kevin, our 20-year-old son with Mowat Wilson Syndrome – a developmental disability – his words are battery-charged, delivered by an app and wrapped protectively in royal blue silicone. And we love his voice.

By the age of two, we knew that Kevin had severe language issues. We held onto the hope that, by age 10 – an important milestone in speech development – he would have words with which to communicate. Perhaps it was naïve on our part; it didn’t happen. When he was 13, we accepted what limited progress he had made, stopped thinking about what he could not do and focused on the everyday things he could achieve.

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