Ways to make digital inclusion work: Keele University

The School of Allied Health Professionals at Keele University runs a hands-on student placement scheme that helps future health professionals get a genuine understanding of digital inclusion and help their communities. We talked to Dr Claire Stapleton about how it works.

Claire (on the left, with Kate from DU) is a senior lecturer and the Digital Health Support Placement Lead at the School. She got involved in digital inclusion (Claire - one line on how you got involved?).

We began working together in 2024, when she started the placement programme, putting a cohort of students through Inspire. The scheme has grown and now student physios and occupational therapists are helping people get digital skills and confidence at regular drop in sessions at community centres, GPs surgeries and the local hospital. They're also supporting refugees with digital skills and Claire is looking at how the scheme can be expanded and at device refurbishment and further partnerships. There's more on the benefits for students and learners here.

We talked to Claire about how it works and what she's learnt along the way.

What is the driver for your DI initiative?

Claire says: "The main driver for this initiative was the need to expand high-quality student placement opportunities alongside a desire to address digital exclusion within the local community.

Across the Allied Health Professions (AHPs), professional bodies are encouraging universities to develop innovative placement models that provide learning experiences across all four pillars of practice: clinical practice, leadership, education and research. This placement enables students to develop patient-facing skills while also gaining experience in education, community engagement and service development. It is particularly aligned to the leadership pillar through its focus on promoting equity, diversity and inclusion by supporting individuals who may otherwise be disadvantaged by the increasing digitalisation of living in a modern society.

A second driver is the growing challenge of digital exclusion.

Many people lack the skills, confidence, access to technology or awareness of support services needed to engage with digital healthcare and the online world. Through the placement, students provide practical, person-centred support to help community members improve their digital confidence, make use of smartphone features and access services such as the NHS App. In doing so, the placement addresses key areas of the AHP Digital Competency Framework, including supporting the digital literacy of others and how to seek community support pathways for digitally excluded individuals. The result is a sustainable model that simultaneously enhances student learning and delivers meaningful benefits to the local community.

Is it driven by organisational and/or statutory requirements?

Yes. This initiative is partly driven by statutory and professional placement requirements for pre-registration AHP students.

To qualify for registration, students must complete a specified number of assessed practice learning hours alongside their academic studies. For example, physiotherapy students are required to achieve 1,000 hours of supervised practice across a range of settings and activities relevant to the role of a physiotherapist. While many of these hours are completed in traditional clinical environments, professional and regulatory frameworks also permit a proportion of practice learning to take place in non-traditional settings, including those focused on leadership, research, service improvement and population health.

This placement model contributes towards those required practice learning hours while enabling students to gain experience beyond direct patient care.

By addressing digital exclusion within the community, the placement also provides opportunities for students to develop skills in health education, community engagement, service development and inclusive practice. As a result, the initiative helps meet placement capacity requirements for universities while delivering a meaningful service that benefits local residents.

two people, one a student, one a client looking at a computer screen

How is it funded and how do you find this funding?

Funding the initiative was initially one of the biggest challenges, but as the placement has developed, we have established a more sustainable delivery model.

A key source of funding comes from placement tariff payments received by organisations that host healthcare students on placement. By designing the initiative as a full-time placement module, students spend time each week supporting a range of community partners, including community venues, GP practices, a refugee centre and a hospital setting, alongside a dedicated study day. With approximately four students per placement block and placements typically lasting five to six weeks, the placement tariff income helps offset a proportion of the staffing, coordination and delivery costs associated with the programme.

In addition, we secured initial start-up funding through the Keele Key Fund, which enabled us to establish the placement and increase its visibility within the community. This funding supported the purchase of branded polo shirts, banners and other promotional materials that helped students establish a professional presence and raise awareness of the service among community partners and members of the public.

The combination of placement tariff income and targeted start-up funding has allowed the initiative to move from a pilot project to a sustainable placement model that continues to benefit both students and the local community.

Much of what you do is embedded in your community and involves working with community organisations. How did you set up these relationships and what benefits has this brought?

Much of the success of this initiative has been built on strong community partnerships, some of which were already established and others that have developed over time. For example, the local MPFT Digital Angels service had previously provided digital support within one of our community venues until its funding ended. Rather than losing that support entirely, our student placement model evolved to continue delivering the service. In other areas, we drew upon existing relationships with placement partners and professional networks to introduce the concept and explore opportunities for collaboration. Having trusted relationships already in place made it much easier to engage organisations and gain support for something that was both new and slightly different from traditional student placements.

Alongside these existing connections, we actively sought out community organisations and groups with a shared interest in digital inclusion. Conversations with Digital Unite played an important role in shaping our approach. Their encouragement, expertise and support helped us overcome challenges during the early stages of the initiative.

One of the key lessons was the importance of clearly articulating the why. The relevance of a digital inclusion placement is not always immediately obvious within AHP education, so it was essential to explain how the placement supports student development, addresses professional requirements and meets a genuine community need. Being persistent, following up conversations and maintaining regular communication also proved important, as potential partners are often enthusiastic but busy

These relationships have opened up significant opportunities and support. Community organisations help us reach people who may benefit most from the service, while trusted local partners such as GP practices, libraries and Citizens Advice help promote the support available through word of mouth and direct signposting.

In turn, partners who share our vision have been keen to contribute in practical ways. Our local hospital has funded promotional banners, a local IT company donated tablets for students to use during support sessions, and the university has provided refurbished laptops to support our work with refugees. This generosity reflects the fact that digital inclusion addresses a recognised need across multiple sectors, creating benefits for students, partner organisations and, most importantly, local community members.

What’s the biggest challenge working with partners?

One of the biggest challenges of working with partners is maintaining strong relationships and communication across a growing network of organisations. Building partnerships is only the beginning; sustaining them requires regular contact, updates and responsiveness to each organisation's needs.

We provide ongoing feedback on the impact of the service, including activity reports and outcomes, which helps partners see the value being delivered to their communities. As student cohorts rotate regularly, we also need to keep partners informed about new students, placement dates and service schedules. Practical requirements such as booking spaces, confirming DBS status, or navigating local governance and approval processes for information requires significant time and coordination.

A further challenge is maintaining visibility and trust within community settings where students are only present for a limited period (typically five to six weeks). In settings such as refugee centres, the support of permanent staff is invaluable in encouraging people to engage with the service and helping to bridge the transitions between student cohorts. As with any community-based initiative, trust takes time to build, and continuity can be more difficult when the workforce changes regularly.

That said, the partnerships are also one of the most rewarding aspects of the initiative. Partners have not only supported delivery but have often contributed resources, ideas and expertise to help the service grow. Bringing together people from different sectors who are all passionate about tackling digital exclusion has been instrumental in shaping the placement into what it is today.

What are the top three lessons you've learnt on running DI projects?

There have been several important lessons from running a digital inclusion project, but three stand out.

First, we learnt that digital inclusion is most effective when it starts with the interests and priorities of the individual, rather than our own professional objectives. As a health-focused placement, our original intention was to concentrate on digital health and healthcare technologies. While this remains an important part of what we do, students quickly recognised that building digital confidence often begins with something that matters to the person in front of them, whether that's communicating with family, accessing community groups, shopping online or using everyday apps. Once confidence grows in these areas, people are often more willing and able to engage with digital health services.

Second, digital inclusion is about far more than technology. Students consistently report that success comes from offering encouragement, patience, reassurance and ongoing support. Many people are not excluded because they lack access to a device; they are excluded because they lack confidence, or are worried about getting things wrong. Building trust and creating a supportive environment is often more important than the technology itself.

Third, it takes time to build awareness, trust and a reputation within the community. Even when a service addresses a genuine need, people do not automatically attend simply because it exists. Establishing a regular presence, developing relationships with trusted community organisations, and relying on word-of-mouth recommendations have all been crucial to growing engagement over time.

What's next?

Our next step is to scale the model so that it can benefit more students, communities and organisations. While the placement currently supports Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy students, there is potential to expand it across a wider range of health and social care programmes. Our ambition is to create multidisciplinary student digital support teams, bringing together learners from different professional backgrounds to provide digital inclusion support across multiple community sites simultaneously. This would not only increase capacity and reach but also provide students with valuable experience of collaborative, multidisciplinary working.

Beyond local expansion, we would like to develop the placement into a model that can be adopted by other universities and healthcare education providers. The principles underpinning the initiative are transferable: creating meaningful placement capacity and delivering a valuable community service. We hope to provide a blueprint that other pre-registration programmes can adapt to their own local contexts.

Ultimately, our vision is to see digital inclusion placements become a recognised part of health and social care education across the UK. This would help address the growing challenge of digital exclusion while ensuring future healthcare professionals gain first-hand insight into the barriers faced by digitally excluded populations and the impact that increasingly digital-only services can have on access, equity and health outcomes. In doing so, students would not only develop important digital and leadership competencies but also contribute to reducing inequalities within the communities they serve.