Rural inhabitants risk becoming “second-class” citizens in the digital revolution as urban dwellers benefit from next-generation broadband and 5G mobile, MPs have said.

The report by the Commons environment, food and rural affairs select committee said that the government has failed to grasp the extent of the digital divide in the provision of broadband and mobile services.

Almost 600,000 “forgotten homes” in rural areas across the UK are still unable to get sufficiently fast broadband to meet a typical family’s needs – from watching Netflix to browsing YouTube.

In England and Wales 6.6% of premises do not receive the 10Mbps internet service the government has mandated as the bare minimum to cover a family’s modern digital needs, compared with just 0.7% in cities and towns. In Scotland, 19% of homes in rural areas don’t get decent internet while in Northern Ireland the figure stands at about 15%.

 “Digital connectivity is now regarded by many as an essential utility, with many in rural areas struggling to live a modern lifestyle without it,” said Neil Parish, the chairman of the committee. “Poor broadband and mobile data services continue to marginalise rural communities, particularly those in hard to reach areas.”

The report said that the government’s target of a 10Mbps internet service as a bare minimum to cover modern digital needs lets down rural families as new technologies and demand for internet services makes such a speed inadequate and obsolete.

Richard Corbridge, formerly chief digital and information officer at Leeds teaching hospitals, describes the “excrutiating” situation of trying to realise centrally-imposed slogans such as “axe the fax” and “purge the pager” without dedicated funds.

Improving digital innovation in the health service is a central plank of the organisation’s 10-year plan announced in January.

However, recent months have seen the departure of several key leaders to the private sector, such as NHS England’s Chief Digital Officer Juliet Bauer, as well as chief information officers at Royal Brompton & Harefield and South London & Maudsley trusts, and senior staff at NHS Digital.

Basic innovations commonly embraced by businesses, such as embracing cloud technology or single sign-in systems, are passed up because funds are often diverted to “fighting today’s crisis”, Mr Corbridge warns.

Cloud services are considered crucial for improving the NHS’s clunky system for sharing patient records, currently considered the one of the biggest blocks to improving efficiency in the health service.

Meanwhile frontline doctors commonly grapple with up to 12 different passwords for various hospital systems, such as calling up test results, creating log-jams at computers on the wards.

While welcoming Mr Hancock’s vision and the promise of funds, Mr Corbridge argues that until cash for IT is ring-fenced hospital bosses will continue diverting it towards more “visible” concerns, such as extra beds.

Digital technologies can be valuable tools to improve public services and reduce health and social inequalities, but should not be adopted as “fashion trends” that leave some people behind.

While new technologies like chatbots or artificial intelligence (AI) get a lot of attention, experts at a recent Guardian roundtable event, supported by DXC Technology, agreed digital services should be adopted only when they can genuinely make systems more efficient for staff or end users.

It’s also vital to ensure digital improvements benefit vulnerable groups, and there should be a range of ways to access public services, rather than simply switching to digital-by-default, agreed the panel. In 2018 there were still 5.3 million adults in the UK who were digitally excluded because they lack internet access or have low levels of digital literacy, including people from low-income groups, the elderly, and those living in rural communities.

“Before we even get to the technical barriers there are access barriers as a direct result of poverty or low income,” said Emma Revie, chief executive of the Trussell Trust. “[Digital public services] shouldn’t be just another thing people are excluded from.”

In a world with more mobile devices than people, portable technology has the potential to transform lives.

Mobile access to the internet is helping to power social and economic mobility all over the world. In Africa, for instance, mobile internet access is set to grow five-fold in the next five years. The world has already seen the potential of mobile to provide people with access to financial services, a huge growth issue in developing countries where many people don’t have access to banks. One world-renowned success story is Kenyan company M-Pesa, which allows people to transfer cash using their phones – and the model has been swiftly adopted elsewhere. Countries where more than 70% of people can make digital payments see financial inclusion rates of more than 85%, a study by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation found. 

But barriers remain to exploiting the full potential of mobile – no matter where in the world you are. High costs and poor education are two of the biggest, according to Eddie Copeland, head of the technology policy unit at UK thinktank Policy Exchange.

Copeland wants politicians and policymakers to tackle these barriers. But just how can we make sure the benefits of mobile technology reach people in even the most deprived and least connected communities?

The teaching of digital skills in schools should be regarded as equally important as lessons in numeracy and literacy, according to a report published on Tuesday.

The study by the House of Lords digital skills committee calls for a radical rethink of education and says digital literacy should be treated as a third core subject. It also says the internet should be regarded as a utility on a par with water or electricity, in order to ensure unimpeded access for all.

The report says urgent action is required to support teachers who are currently not equipped to deliver the new computing curriculum, and insists no child should leave school without basic digital literacy.

An estimated 9.5 million people currently lack a minimum level of digital skills and the report warns the UK risks becoming “a branch economy, much less prosperous and influential” if it doesn’t pursue a digital agenda.

From chat rooms for victims of sexual violence in South Africa, to trendsetting initiatives in the US, we explore the insights from six digital successes and failures

The ubiquitous presence of the internet in our lives has encouraged the UK government to think seriously about how technology could reconfigure, and improve, the provision of public services.

What lessons can be learned from what other countries are doing with digital public services? We asked six professionals from around the world to share their stories.

India: “You don’t have to own a computer to access online services”

Iran: “If you just focus on the technology, eventually you will fail”

Liberia: “Post conflict, we are getting creative with high and low tech”

South Africa: “Intensive campaigns are raising awareness about sexual violence”

Pakistan: “Diversity should not be an afterthought”

US: “In shared service delivery, inevitably there are turf issues”

Councils vary wildly in their willingness to grasp the potential of digital services. Some are using digital technology to help them reshape services, create centres of innovation and harness the enthusiasm of their staff, while others still struggle to get their websites to work properly.

Too much investment has been made in large, unwieldy systems. In fact, local government has been doing the wrong digital activity really well for the past 10 years, according to Devon county council’s Carl Haggerty, chair of the LocalGov Digital network. But this is now starting to change. Innovators, experts and enthusiasts are looking at the example set by central government’s Government Digital Service and are recognising that to get people to access council services online, they have to be so good people actually want to use them.

Some councils are already exploring technology in a deeper way. Here are a few examples. Shift Surrey at Surrey county council is aiming to redesign services radically through its innovation lab. The intrapreneur programme at Monmouthshire council is using fresh ideas from the authority’s own workforce. And FutureGov is delivering services made possible by digital technology, such as its Casserole project in areas of London,which connects neighbours with spare portions of food to those in their community who need a good meal.