Looking to a digital future for health service in Lancashire

Pupils from across Lancashire and South Cumbria joined the event as part of the NHS70 celebrations and to mark the culmination of a Digital Healthy Schools project.

It was organised by Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria, the ‘shadow integrated care system’ for the region also known as the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership.

Both health practitioners and accountants are persuaded the digital future is the way ahead to improve health care.

However there is a barrier. It is estimated 11m people in the UK lack the skills to use online health services.

The challenge is to persuade the public to come on board and see how the use of digital technologies can enable them to manage their health and care more effectively.

Amazon Web Services were just one of the tech expert services brought in for fun-filled sessions, designed to inspire pupils about where innovation could lead.

Pupils played an interactive virtual reality game being developed by a team at UCLan and had the opportunity to experience life in space by visiting the Tim Peake Space Bus, provided courtesy of Samsung.

Dr Amanda Thornton, digital health clinical lead for Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria, said: “We want everyone to feel part of the future of the NHS – from school children to their grandparents.

We want to empower every person to feel confident and capable of making informed decisions about their health and wellbeing and technology is already playing an important part in supporting this.

“This was a great opportunity to work with one of our partner universities to involve a group of young people in developing the technology which will support health and care in the future and to capture their creativity and ideas.”