Tasteofmedicine.com – innovative uses of e-learning technologies to widen access and support social equity

St George's, University of London takes a lead in widening access to medical and healthcare education for those from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. This includes such measures as social class (derived from parental occupation), state funded education, disability, ethnicity, experience of the social care system and low family income. Among a wealth of initiatives ranging from primary school through to adult learners (SGUL 2010), ongoing developments to www.tasteofmedicine.com include the construction of four distinct micro sites, that form a family of resources mirroring the student lifecycle model and supporting the educational development of potential students. Our evidence has shown a considerable impact on potential students and has formed a central part of our efforts to recruit medical and healthcare students from a broad and diverse range of backgrounds. This paper explains how the site was developed as well as the reasoning behind its creation. We also offer details of the range of innovative ways in which this web resource is to be developed over the coming years and explain how, as an approach to reaching hard to target audiences, there is significant scope to develop similar resources outside of the UK.