The digitisation of healthcare services is often reported as a solution to barriers to health and wellbeing services. For example, the Near Me video consulting platform can save patients from having to travel to appointments. But there is a presupposition when solutions such as Near Me are suggested as solutions for patients that the patient or service user has firstly got access to a device with an operating system that can support the software and secondly that the patient has reliable Wi-Fi at home. This is one of the reasons why broadband needs to be considered as the 4th utility.
