CILIP facilitated communication and collaboration in the Health and Digital literacy partnership that brought together NHS England, Arts Council England, and Libraries Connected.

The Health and Digital Literacy Partnership launched with two cohorts of pilot projects that explored different approaches to improving health and digital literacy. These were funded by the national NHS Knowledge and Library Services team at NHS England.

The Partnership enables partners to provide members of the public with the skills that they will need to access, assess and use health information in an increasingly digital environment.

CILIP provided strategic planning support and facilitated communication through knowledge sharing sessions between participants and cohorts.

These knowledge sharing sessions allowed learnings and outcomes to be shared before the end of the pilot scheme, so that later projects could integrate them for enhanced results, and greater reach.

Leeds Libraries ran a series of digital wellbeing events making arts, music or a social activity the main theme of the event, rather than digital health information or health literacy. Oldham opened its library space for members of the public to have online consultations, and Norfolk Libraries trialled "Easy- Read” (accessible) shared decision-making tools for health and care choices.

Read and download all the case studies

People with long-term conditions such as depression, diabetes, and heart disease are more likely to have limited health literacy.

Poor health literacy is associated with an increased risk of morbidity and premature death in older adults, and can result in reduced uptake of prevention services including immunisations and screening.

Pilot projects were run in rural and urban areas across England and covered a wide scope, from online resources and health hubs, to community and engagement, to hiring specialised librarians.

Staffordshire Library Service piloted ‘Be Your Health’, a programme aimed at 16-25 year-olds, to identify the barriers preventing young people from obtaining accurate and dependable health and digital health information.

The programme engaged young people through conversations and a health champion scheme to set up the next stage of the scheme that will be a collaborative health toolkit / passport.

Pilots took place in rural and urban areas across England: Suffolk, Norfolk, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Leeds, Lancashire, Somerset, Westminster & Kensington and Chelsea, Scarborough, Newcastle, Ellesmere Port, Oldham, Aylesbury, and Essex.

Read and download case studies from participating local authorities that include details on local context, health literacy levels, learnings and outcomes from their pilot activities.