The Digital Divide

‘It’s like being asked to do everything in a foreign language’ – that’s the reality for those on the wrong side of the digital divide in today’s society. The pandemic accelerated the pace of the ‘digital first’ agenda which impacts disproportionately people already living with multiple challenges.

‘Digital first’ often translates as ‘digital only’ and is another barrier to full participation for people who cannot communicate on digital platforms: as a result people are having their rights as citizens eroded or removed without any recourse.

Our drop-in, health and advice services spend hours every day trying to level the playing field for digitally excluded guests but it’s a difficult and uphill task.

The digital divide means many people can no longer:
• make GP appointments
• keep phone appointments (with no phones or no smartphones to send pictures to GP etc)
• get their prescriptions as many ordering services are via app now
• interact with DWP via smartphone resulting in benefits sanctions or being unable to make claims for their entitlement.

We found that 90% of our health and benefits clients couldn’t access services by phone or computer leading to many of them giving up and not receiving treatment for serious conditions or missing out on welfare entitlements. The stress caused by trying to negotiate the barriers to access is making many people even more unwell.

Being able to participate fully in society isn’t only about having the right IT kit or skills, it’s also about being able to cope with the formats of online forms and booking systems and telephone assessments – and often, for people with mental health or learning issues, these are simply not forms of communication that they can participate in.

And so we are seeing the silent disenfranchisement of many of our most vulnerable citizens: our guests are having their citizens’ rights removed at an alarming rate and there is little, if anything, they can do about it.

One of Maundy Relief’s mission aims is to be ‘tenacious in the pursuit of fairness and equality’ and by helping our guests negotiate this new world and speaking up against the erosion of their right to participate, we will continue advocate for the voices of all citizens to be heard.