Digital exclusion amongst older people

Older people are more likely than others to be digitally excluded. Research by ONS ⁽¹⁾  has shown that 'adults over the age of 65 years have consistently made up the largest proportion of the adult internet non-users, and over half of all adult internet non-users were over the age of 75 years in 2018'. LOTI's  digital exclusion toolkit  lists older people as one of the six key groups more likely to be digitally excluded.

By older people, we mean adults aged 65 and older.

The personas below illustrate how some older members of our community may be affected by digital exclusion. Click on an image to expand it to full screen.

These profiles are taken from LOTI's Digital Exclusion Personas. The personas aim to provide a deeper insight into the user needs of the key digital exclusion groups. Additional personas and more detail regarding the work is available at LOTI's  Digital Exclusion Persona Bank .

Each of the indicators shown below can help guide us to the people and places in most need of digital inclusion support.

•  Where our older people live 
•  Living on a low income 
•  Living in poor health or with a disability 
•  Internet use classification 
•  Poor broadband availability 
•  Paper returns in the last Census  
•  GP services online 
•  Community Facilities 

Each of these indicators is provided in interactive mapped format below. Below each map is a link that will bring you back to this list. The 'expand' arrows in the top right corner of each map will change the map to full-screen mode. Zoom in or out of the map using the scroll button on your mouse, or the plus and minus buttons on the map. Click on an area of the map to show a pop-up box with information about that area.

Across London, there are approximately 1.1 million people aged 65 and over ⁽²⁾ . The proportion of older people varies considerably between boroughs, ranging from as low as 7% in Tower Hamlets to 18% in Havering.

Zoom in to the interactive map below, and click on an area to see a pop-up box with more information.

Map 1: People aged 65 and over

The map below shows only the areas that have the highest proportion of older residents (the highest quintile). As a general trend, higher proportions of older people live in the outer London boroughs. There are however exceptions to this, with Kensington & Chelsea and Camden both containing a number of areas with significant proportions of older people.

Map 2: Areas with highest proportion of people aged 65 and over

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We know that living on a low income can significantly increase our chance of being digitally excluded ⁽¹⁾ . The map below shows income deprivation affecting older people (IDAOP). This is one of the measures from the Index of Multiple Deprivation ⁽³⁾ , a series of measures to show relative deprivation across England.

Areas shown in darker purple have the greatest income deprivation affecting older people, whilst areas in darker green are the least deprived. In significant contrast to Map 2, above, the IDAOP map shows greater concentrations of deprivation in the inner London Boroughs. In the London Boroughs of Hackney, Newham and Tower Hamlets, over 90% of the LSOAs fall within the most deprived two deciles across the whole of England.

Map 3: Income Deprivation Affecting Older People

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Those of us living with a disability or a long term health condition are much more likely to be digitally excluded than those of us without  ⁽¹⁾ . The map below shows the proportion of people aged 65+ with a long term health condition or disability that affects their day-to-day activities a little or a lot. Areas in darker red have the highest proportion of people aged 65+ affected by a long term limiting health condition.

Across London as a whole, one third of all people (33%) aged 65 and over have day-to-day activities limited due to long term health condition or disability (Census 2021). In parts of Tower Hamlets this number rises to as many as 51% of people aged 65 and over.

Many areas show significant variations between their residents. For example, the City of Westminster contains several areas with some of the lowest rates throughout London, with fewer than one fifth of people (16%) aged 65 and over living in Knightsbridge, Belgravia & Hyde Park having a long term health condition or disability. Two thirds of areas within Westminster have rates well below the national average, but three areas (Queen's Park Gardens, Maida Hill and Church Street) stand out as having rates above 40%.

Map 4: People aged 65+ with Long Term Health Condition or Disability

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The Consumer Data Research Centre ( CDRC ), has developed an 'internet user classification' to describe how different groups of people interact with the internet. The classification can be mapped at Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) level.

There are 10 groups described by the classification. These are:

1. e-Cultural Creators
2. e-Professionals
3. e-Veterans
4. Youthful Urban Fringe
5. e-Rational Utilitarians
6. e-Mainstream
7. Passive and Uncommitted Users
8. Digital Seniors
9. Settled Offline Communities
10. e-Withdrawn

Of these groups, the three highlighted in bold in the list above can help guide us to the places where digital exclusion is most likely to be an issue amongst older people, these are described below.

Group 7. Passive and Uncommitted Users - "Many individuals have limited or no interaction with the Internet. They tend to reside outside city centres and close to the suburbs or semi-rural areas. Members of this Group have few distinctive characteristics in conventional socioeconomic terms, albeit higher levels of employment in semi-skilled and blue-collar occupations. Individuals are rarely online, and most commonly report use once a week or less. Access to broadband is well below average, and for those online, there is mild preference for access via smartphones. The Internet is typically used for social networks, gaming and some limited online shopping."

Significant areas of this group can be seen throughout many of the London boroughs. Almost three-quarters of the areas within Barking and Dagenham are classified in this group. Large proportions of Brent, Enfield, Greenwich, Havering and Newham are also classified as Group 7.

Group 9. Settled Offline Communities - "Most members of this Group are elderly, White British and retired, and tend to reside in semirural areas. They undertake only limited engagement with the Internet, they may have only rare access or indeed no access to it at all. Any online behaviour tends to be through home computers rather than mobile devices, and is focused upon information seeking and limited online shopping (particularly for more bulky items such as white goods) rather than social networking, gaming or media streaming."

Just one area in Bromley and two areas in Havering are classified as Group 9.

Group 10. e-Withdrawn - "This Group is mainly characterised by individuals who are the least engaged with the Internet. Their geography is expressed by areas that are associated with those more deprived neighbourhoods of urban regions. The socio-economic profile of the population is characterised by less affluent white British individuals or areas of high ethnic diversity; and it has the highest rate of unemployment and social housing among all other Groups. The eWithdrawn Group appears to have the highest ratio of people that don’t have access, or have access but never engage with the Internet. It also expresses the lowest rates of engagement in terms of information seeking and financial services, as well as the lowest rate in terms of online access via a mobile device. Online shopping is also particularly low, with the exception of Clothing on Credit, suggesting an opportunistic dimension to Internet usage. This is further reinforced by the higher than average access to Cable broadband by TV Provider, which may suggest that some individuals have opted into broadband mainly for the TV-associated benefits. It is possible that many people within this Group have opted out of online engagement, either because it is considered unnecessary or because of economic reasons."

Small pockets of this group are found throughout Greater London, particularly in areas of Ealing and in neighbouring Hounslow. There are also small but notable areas in Brent, Hackney, Haringey, Kensington and Chelsea, Waltham Forest and Westminster.

Further information on this data set, including a description of each group, can be found on the  CDRC website .

The interactive map below shows the internet user classification for the three groups highlighted above, across London.

Map 5: Internet user classification

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In 2018, the Government introduced legislation for a broadband ‘universal service obligation’ (USO), which gave every home and business in the UK the legal right to request a 'decent and affordable broadband connection'. 'Decent' is defined as a download speed of 10 Mbit/s and an upload speed of 1 Mbit/s. More information regarding this right, and how to request access for areas that fall below the USO, is available on the  Ofcom website . In 2021, Ofcom estimated that around 0.2% of premises (around 61,000 premises) in England were still without a decent broadband connection. ⁽⁵⁾  In London around 1,500 premises still fall below the USO.

The map below shows the areas where there are premises that do not meet the universal service obligation. These areas are mostly concentrated in the outer London boroughs, particularly in Havering, Hounslow, Enfield and Bromley. However, there are also pockets in inner London including Hackney and Hammersmith & Fulham.

Click on the map to see further information about each area.

Map 6: Areas with premises without decent broadband

There are also around 3% of premises (almost 120,000 premises) in London that still do not have access to super-fast broadband, and they're distributed throughout both inner and outer London, as shown on the interactive map below.

Map 7: Areas with premises without super-fast broadband

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The 2021 Census was the first 'digital-first' census in England and Wales; in total 88.9% of households responded online ⁽⁴⁾ . Paper questionnaires were also made available for anyone who wished to use one. A number of LSOAs were were identified as 'paper-first' areas; these were areas where the take-up of the online response was expected to be low, but willingness to take part in the Census without further prompts was high. In these areas, all households were sent a paper questionnaire.

The map below shows how likely households across London were to respond to the census online. The 'hard to count - digital' measure categorises all LSOAs from 1 to 5. Each category is described in the table below.

Areas categorised as 5 (shown in red on the map) represent the LSOAs least likely to respond online.

The ONS have noted that the mode of initial contact regarding the census (either a paper form or a letter with a digital access code) strongly influenced people's choice to respond on paper or online. "As households that are sent paper questionnaires are more likely to respond on paper regardless of their digital skills, a lower online share of responses in paper-first areas is not necessarily indicative of a lower digital propensity."  ⁽⁴⁾ .

We can see from the map below that there are small areas distributed throughout most of the London boroughs where households were less likely to respond online. In seven boroughs (Bexley, Bromley, Havering, Hillingdon, Kingston-upon-Thames, Redbridge and Sutton) these areas were all 'paper-first' LSOAs. However, there are some areas, particularly noticeable in Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Westminster which weren't 'paper-first' and which are categorised within the 2% of LSOAs least likely to respond online.

Click an area on the map for more information.

Map 8: Census 2021 'hard to count - digital' index

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NHS Digital run a 'Patient online management information' programme ⁽⁶⁾ , designed to help GP Practices to offer and promote online services to patients. Using the data from this programme, we're able to see the proportion of patients registered with each GP practice that are registered for at least one online service.

The map below shows the proportion of patients at each GP Practice that are not registered for at least one online service. Larger, red circles show practices with a greater proportion of 'offline' patients. Care needs to be taken when interpreting this map, as some GP Practices will be more inclined than others to push digital services, so a high proportion of offline patients may not be representative of the surrounding area's digital capacity. Similarly, some people who are digitally capable may choose to not interact with their GP digitally.

Map 9: Proportion of people using online GP services

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The map below shows libraries and community centres throughout London. London has the largest public library network of any major world city ⁽⁷⁾ , 345 libraries are shown on the map below, that's an average of more than 10 libraries per borough. All of the council run libraries have free wifi and PCs with internet access available to library members. Library staff can also provide assistance with using these services.

The 915 community centres mapped include both borough-run and community led centres. There are a range of facilities available in these centres. Click on a centre on the map for more information, if a weblink is available it will be provided in the pop-up box.

These map layers can be used in conjunction with other layers in the mapping tools to help identify where and how services might be delivered. In some instances, it may also show gaps in provision, where community facilities could be added.

Map 10: Libraries and Community Centres

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The following three examples show how the data shown in the maps above could be used to guide us to people and places most in need of digital inclusion support. The interactive maps in the examples below are copies of the maps already shown above, zoomed in for greater detail.

•  Case Study 1: Newham 
•  Case Study 2: Enfield 
•  Case Study 3: Merton 

The London Borough of Newham has a relatively young population. An estimated 84% of the population is aged under 55 years (ONS mid year population estimates 2020), and fewer than 30,000 people are aged 65 and over.

Over 90% of the LSOAs in Newham fall into the highest two deciles nationwide for Income Deprivation Affecting Older People; meaning that many older people living in Newham are very likely to be living in relative poverty.

Older people within the borough of Newham are also very likely to experience long term health conditions or disabilities that affect their day to day lives. Almost all of the MSOAs in Newham have rates higher than the London average (34%), and many areas have rates above 40%. This means that two-thirds of the people aged 65 and over in these areas will have a long term health condition or disability.

Click on the map to explore the area in greater detail.

The latest Ofcom data shows that 22 premises in Newham still don't have access to decent broadband (i.e. above 10Mbit/s download and 1Mbit/s upload). These areas are highlighted on the map. Click an area on the map to explore in greater detail.

The internet user classification for Newham shows a broad area running from Manor Park in the north east towards Canning Town in the south west where there is likely to be lower internet use, this includes areas of group 7 (passive and uncommitted users, shown in blue on the map), with some pockets of group 10 (e-Withdrawn, shown in pink on the map) within it.

Looking at the proportion of people who use GP services online, we can see a number of GP Practices where online engagement is low. These are particularly clustered around the Manor Park / Upton / Forest Gate areas.

Although this can be driven by a number of reasons (the GP Practice may not strongly encourage online use, and some people may prefer not to interact with their GP online even if they're capable of doing so), it is noteworthy that there are a number of practices with low levels of online engagement, near to areas where there are greater proportions of older people in ill health.

Older people who are currently digitally excluded in Newham are likely to be spread fairly evenly across the whole borough, although there may be some additional needs in the areas of Manor Park, Upton, Forest Gate, Canning Town and East Ham. When supporting people in the south east of the borough it is important to consider that their home may not have access to adequate broadband speeds.

In contrast to Newham, Enfield has an older population. Over 13% of Enfield's residents were estimated to be aged 65 and over in the most recent population estimates.

In some areas almost 1 in 3 people are aged 65 and over.

However, the pattern of income deprivation affecting older people shows that the areas with higher rates of income deprivation are frequently in areas with lower proportions of older people. This means that resources might be most effectively used in areas other than those with the highest populations of older people.

Looking at the number of paper returns provided in the last census shows a small band of areas in the east of the borough which were considered 'hard to count - digital', where households were less likely to respond online. Click an area on the map to see the proportion of households that returned their paper in census format in that area.

The Internet User Classification further support this, as we can see a large area to the east of the borough, from Edmonton in the South to Enfield Lock in the North, which is largely categorised as group 7 (passive and uncommitted users), with some pockets of group 10 (e-Withdrawn).

If we add the libraries and community centre data, we see a number of community facilities in this area.

When considering all this data together it suggests that the areas in the east of the borough are likely to have the most prevalent and complex digital inclusion needs. Practitioners may want to focus resources here and look to existing community assets as hubs for delivering services. The Delaisay and Eric personas may be helpful when designing services for people with digital inclusion needs in this area.

 (See the personas) 

Around 13% of Merton's population is aged 65 and over, which equates to over 26,000 people.

Some areas of the borough have a much younger profile (for example, just 6% of the population in parts of Colliers Wood are aged 65+), but in some areas in the west of the borough older people make up 1 in 4 of the population.

The internet user classification shows us that areas to the south east of the borough are more likely to be digitally excluded, with some areas classified as group 7 (passive and uncommitted users), and a small area classed as group 10 (e-withdrawn).

Generally, older people in the borough are less likely than average (compared to London as a whole) to be living with a long term health condition or disability. However, there are some pockets with higher rates, over 40% of people aged 65 and over in Mitcham West live with a condition that affects their day to day lives.

If we look at the proportion of people who use GP services online, we can see a number of GP Practices where online engagement is low.

Although this can be driven by a number of reasons (the GP Practice may not strongly encourage online use, and some people may prefer not to interact with their GP online even if they're capable of doing so), there are a number of practices with low levels of online engagement, near to areas where there are greater proportions of older people in ill health.

Given the correlation between older people, those with disabilities and low uptake of online GP services, there may be opportunities for local government and health partners to come together to support residents in the south east of the borough.

This story map has brought together various open data sets that can help guide us to the people and places in most need of digital inclusion support. If you have any feedback on this tool please contact:  jay.saggar@loti.london .

The  interactive mapping tool  contains all the layers shown in this storymap, and allows you to choose which layers to display on the map for any area in Greater London. Information on  other resources  can also be found in the 'about digital exclusion storymapping' page.