Exploring service users' and healthcare professionals' experience of digital and face-to-face Health Checks in England: a qualitative study

Introduction In England, eligible adults aged 40-74 years are invited to attend a face-to-face (F2F) NHS Health Check appointment every 5 years. A digital version of the Health Check was introduced by a local authority as an alternative for those hesitant or less able to attend an F2F appointment.Objectives This qualitative study aimed to understand service users' (SUs) and healthcare professionals' (HCPs) experiences and opinions of F2F Health Checks and digital Health Checks (DHC), identify barriers and facilitators of the F2F Health Check and DHC pathways, and recommend potential improvements.Design This is a qualitative study, involving interviews with a purposive sample of participants.Participants and setting A purposive sample of 30 SUs and 8 HCPs were recruited by an external market service company in the London Borough of Southwark.Methods Semistructured interviews were conducted, which included questions on understanding why SUs chose a type of Health Check, their experiences of the service and suggestions for improvement. HCP interviews covered HCP experiences of providing both services, including any impact on workload. The Framework method of thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.Results SUs identified benefits of the DHC service including its convenience, ease of use and access. Both SUs and HCPs acknowledged the limitations of the DHC, including self-reporting physical measures (eg, blood pressure and cholesterol levels) or difficulties going elsewhere to measure them, and the lack of opportunity to discuss health with a professional. SUs and HCPs both noted the lack of available appointments and time constraints as barriers associated with the F2F service.Conclusions Both HCPs and SUs perceive that in its current form, the DHC has benefits and barriers to its use. If these are adequately addressed, the DHC may help address the demand and pressure within General Practitioner (GP) clinics.Trial registration number This study was registered on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/y87zt/.