The UK’s public appears to be embracing digital healthcare, according to a new survey. However, the same poll reveals that more trust is needed in its security. The data comes from the company Utimaco (who provide IT security solutions). The survey is titled ‘Circles of Trust: How the UK Public Perceives Digital Risk’.
The study found that almost two-thirds (63 percent) of respondents said they would use digital services to access healthcare when possible. It also stands that less than half (46 percent) said they consider the information they share with their healthcare provider to be secure.
In general, the approval of digital health is in tandem with accessing services through the National Health Service (NHS), with 87 percent of the population indicating they are proud of the NHS.
In terms of NHS services, following the COVID-19 pandemic that began in early 2020, many hospitals and general practitioner (GP) offices switched to treating patients via phone consultations, video chats and other digital means where possible. Although many patients have returned to attending GPs surgeries in person it remains that many appointments are still carried out digitally.
For example, the NHS App has been downloaded over 16 million times and was pivotal in giving the government oversight into the spread of COVID-19. Behind the scenes, there has been a move to digitalize the systems that allow various NHS offices to share information and centralize records.
This change has arguably increased efficiency, but having sensitive health records stored digitally could potentially open them up to being compromised. Other parts of the survey dealing with trust of digital technology shows that 70 percent of the public worry to some level about the security of their data when using this type of tech.
However, considering the results of a similar question asked about healthcare 46 percent believe that their data held by the NHS is secure.
Why is there this discrepancy in the level of trust? This relates to the earlier finding about the UK public’s widespread support of the NHS as an institution. This variation is borne out by the fact that the results show that 60 percent of respondents would not feel comfortable sharing personal information digitally with healthcare providers who are not part of the NHS.
“The results show us that the UK public is enthusiastic about the possibilities of digital technology, but they are still wary of the security implications of digitalization. This seems to be far less of a problem in the case of the NHS, where the pride the British people have in it as an institution has translated to trust in its cybersecurity,“ Ansgar Steden, Chief Revenue Officer at Utimaco says in a statement provided to Digital Journal.
Steden adds: “If the British government wants to modernize the NHS through digitalization, then this survey shows that it should have the backing of the majority of the public.”
