Bob Gann: A tribute

PIF staff and members have paid tribute to their kind, generous and knowledgeable friend Bob Gann. A tireless campaigner for health literacy and digital inclusion, Bob was also a long-time supporter of PIF who was always willing to share his expertise.

PIF director Sophie Randall said: "Bob Gann was a real friend to PIF and to health information. He was quietly passionate in his work to ensure that everyone had access to health information. And, when the digital age started Bob, was one of the first to champion digital inclusion and advocate for digital inequalities assessments to accompany any digital change. He leaves a huge legacy as the comments from PIF members testify.

"Bob had a hugely successful career, but was always willing to share his knowledge and expertise with others. He was a huge support to me when I started at PIF.  Bob was a generous, gentle and kind man who will be very much missed by all who had the pleasure of working with him." 

Open and knowledgeable

Bob's career began as a medical librarian in Southampton. In 1992, he became Chief Executive of the Help for Health Trust, a registered charity providing health information services including helplines, publishing and websites. Bob held a number of roles within the NHS, including director of new media at NHS Direct and director of partnerships and strategy at NHS Choices. During his time as a digital inclusion specialist at NHS Digital, he researched and wrote the digital inclusion guide for healthcare.

Joanna Dundon, national digital lead – public engagement, Digital Health and Care Wales said: "I knew Bob when I worked at the King’s Fund library in the 1990s, then I was fortunate to work with him on a Digital Communities Wales evaluation of digital inclusion in health and care in Wales in 2019. We had a great catch up and reminisce of what we had done over that time. He was so open and knowledgeable about digital inclusion and wanted to share that with us. We all benefited from him and I feel very glad that I had the chance to work with him. Librarianship and health literacy have lost a gentleman."

Advocating for digital exclusion

A common theme throughout Bob's distinguished career was his work to combat digital exclusion and increase health literacy. As programme director for widening digital participation at NHS England he led the Widening Digital Participation programme which aimed to support people in some of the hardest-to-reach communities in the UK with specialised digital health literacy support.

Caroline DeBrun, knowledge and evidence specialist, UK Health Security Agency, said: "Bob Gann tested the model for my thesis, which was about improving access to good quality consumer health information. Having been involved in health information literacy since 1990, his knowledge and experience was invaluable."

Sharing expertise

Prior to his retirement, Bob worked as a consultant. This included acting as an expert adviser to NORC at the University of Chicago on public reporting of health quality and as a digital health literacy adviser at CILIP. During this time, Bob also helped develop the first health and digital literacy training at PIF.

PIF communications manager Sheena Campbell said: "It was an absolute honour to deliver digital literacy training alongside Bob. His expertise and passion never failed to inspire and he had a wealth of knowledge which he was always willing to share – not just with delegates but with the team at PIF as well. I hope that his generosity leaves a lasting legacy of PIF members who are as inspired as he was to tackle digital exclusion and promote health literacy."