All Health Visitor’s in West Lothian have recently been given laptops, my project aim was to support them finding new ways of working and enhancing patient care by using technology such as NHS Near me and by using the laptops in patients home in order to improve care. There is a high number of patients who do not have access to the internet and technology, my vision is that health visitors can support these families to access services such as parenting support websites, housing, early years services, legal advice, referrals to partner agencies and many more.
The vision was that the use of NHS Near me would allow health visitors to see more families, this vision changed as the country started to come out of lockdown, the use of Near me has not been well received by patients who prefer face to face contact, this will continue to be revisited but for purposes of the project I concentrated on using the laptops in patients homes and the impact this may have on saving time and fuel costs.
