Over a quarter of the nurses who work in the community sector are still using paper-based systems. Workforce planning is being carried out manually in most cases and this isn’t efficient at all. A survey showed that over 85% of community nurses believe that technology can help them but the findings showed that most nurses are struggling to fully utilise it. This is because they have a poor level of internet connectivity in their home and they also have a lack of suitable devices as well. This includes laptops and even tablets. The main problem that people have is that they have services on their devices that are not compatible with one another.

The survey also showed that there is a continuing reliance on paper record keeping. This is very time intensive and it also opens up the chance of information being entered incorrectly. A lot of respondents have reported that social media also hindered the organisation and themselves.

95% of UK residents own a mobile phone and this gives nurses the chance to engage with their patients in a cost-efficient and time-efficient manner. The problem there is that only 28% of nurses use text messaging to communicate with their patients. 63% of adults state that social media is a strong part of their lives but most nurses do not use social media in a professional way. If you work in nursing jobs, in a nursing agency or even as a nursing recruitment agency member then you will understand this struggle and it just goes to show that more needs to be done in order to give people the support that they need on a day to day basis. If social media could be used more efficiently, it would benefit everyone involved.