By James Freed, deputy director for The NHS Digital Academy, NHS England
Digital is no longer an add-on to healthcare, it is inseparable from it, and is a key pillar of the NHS 10 Year Plan.
Electronic patient records, remote consultations, rostering, pathology and radiology systems, and an expanding family of AI-enabled tools now frame how clinicians deliver care and how patients experience it.
Yet too many clinicians still practice without the confidence or competence to use the very systems that underpin safe, effective care.
When the NHS Digital Academy ran a learning needs analysis across the NHS, three quarters of staff identified at least one digital skills deficit.
Around half of clinicians told us that, at the point they start work after finishing their training, they don’t feel ready to use the technologies their roles now require.
That’s not a marginal training gap, it’s a key clinical risk.
What digital literacy really means
At the NHS Digital Academy, we use a straightforward definition.
Digital literacy is the set of capabilities that fit a person for living, learning, working, participating and thriving in a digital society.
For clinicians, that means being both confident and competent with the tools that now mediate everything from documenting care to coordinating teams.
It’s layered.
At the foundation is basic familiarity such as using a computer, mouse, keyboard, tablet or phone, and yes, that still matters.
Roughly five percent of the workforce have issues at this level, often because they’ve managed to work around digital systems for years until a modern EPR made it unavoidable.
Above the basics sit the essential skills for work.
These include navigating the internet safely, using productivity tools, and managing routine tasks such as rosters and payslips online.
Then come product-specific skills aligned the everyday systems that clinicians must use to deliver care.
There’s also the broader layer of emerging technologies.
Most clinicians do not need to become data scientists, but they do need to recognise capability, limitation and risk, especially with the rapid development of
