Don’t get caught out by a 90-day notice period
It may seem a long way off but 31 March is approaching, signalling the website renewal date for many GP practices. Nick Braithwaite* explains that if you’re on a 90 day notice period and want to improve your practice website to bring it in line with current NHS guidance, you need to be considering your options now.
For practices with a 31 March website subscription renewal date (and many renewals do coincide with the NHS year-end), a 90 day notice period means you will need to give notice to your current website provider by Friday 29 December.
If your practice was part of a group scheme negotiated by the ICB, any funding as part of the deal may be coming to an end.
This means that come 31 March, some practices may be taking on the running costs for their websites.
Looking for a good price will always be high on the agenda. As is so often the case though, the lowest cost doesn’t always come with the highest quality.
5-point checklist
Generally, the quality of practice websites is higher today than it was before NHS England published its guidance on creating a highly usable and accessible practice website1 at the back end of 2022.
There’s always room for improvement, however. Use this checklist to find out if your online presence isn’t yet up to standard. If it is, now might be the time to look for another website supplier:
- Don’t use accessibility tools or overlays. Accessibility is important but widgets or toolbars claiming to make websites accessible aren’t the answer. The NHS guidance advises against using them. The best way to help people with access needs is having a well-designed and well-structured website.
- Do have clear patient pathways for appointments and repeat prescriptions. Signposting your patients to complete key tasks online makes sense for everyone, including the practice team. Include buttons at the top of the homepage for appointments, prescriptions, patient registrations, sick notes and test results.
- Do have a postcode checker on your boundary map. This helps patients check if they are eligible to join your practice before trying to register, saving time for both patients and admin staff. Staff can also use the checker themselves to check a patient’s address when they call or walk into the surgery.
- Do check your website on a mobile. According to Ofcom2 nearly one in five internet users only go online via a smartphone. Your practice website should therefore be as easy to use on a mobile phone as it is on a desktop computer. This means the website should be built to fit the screens of different devices automatically.
- Don’t write your own healthcare information. Avoid the temptation to create ‘libraries’ of healthcare information. They’re difficult to maintain and can go out of date quickly. Have as few pages as possible on your website and include widgets such as NHS Health A-Z, Find NHS services near you and NHS Live Well.
Questions to ask
If, after checking your website, you believe it’s time to make some improvements, looking for an alternative website provider is the next step. Here are three questions to ask prospective suppliers:
- Does the provider offer a good quality, compliant template? Most practice website suppliers provide a template-based service. Make sure the template they offer has been designed to follow the NHS guidance and score highly on the NHS benchmarking and improvement tool3.
- Does the provider have a clinical safety officer? Any online forms included on your website must be checked and signed off by a clinical safety officer to comply with the NHS Digital DCB0129 information standard.
- Does the provider understand the security and compliance requirements? As well as having an accredited clinical safety officer, the provider should have a data protection officer and meet all NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit requirements.
Time spent now reviewing your website to make sure it complies with current best practice will help save you time in the long-run and ensure optimal online journeys for patients.
*Nick Braithwaite is technical product manager at GPsurgery.net
1 https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/creating-a-highly-usable-and-accessible-gp-website-for-patients
3 https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/gp-website-benchmarking-and-improvement-tool/