6 things your website provider should be doing for you
There’s a big push to improve the experience patients have when they visit your practice website. This means having accurate, clear and concise written content and a website that is easy to use. The responsibility for making this happen should be a collaboration between the practice team and your website provider. Tim Green* suggests six things your website provider should be doing for your practice.
1 – Pre-written content templates provided free of charge
Avoid the temptation to reinvent the wheel and start writing the content yourself. Good website providers will have specialist healthcare writers who are experts at writing digital content. Look for a provider who can offer pre-written content that follows NHS best practice. It should be easy for your patients to read and understand, with a focus on short sentences and simple language. Take a look at the GPsurgery.net content library, which is free to access for anyone with an NHS email address, for examples of good, clear written content.
2 – Search box on every page
It’s essential to make it easy for your patients to find the information they’re looking for on the practice website. The website design offered by your provider should include a search box, clearly signposted at the top of every web page. A prominent search box will not only help your patients but your reception team and care navigators too. Directing patients to use the search box to find information on, for example, ‘carers’ or ‘sick notes’, can be a real time-saver.
3 – Support with new boundary map update
Check your provider is aware of the recent update to the online boundary map tool that practices in England add to their websites. The old boundary map system was discontinued on 5 February 2024. Practices should make sure they’ve updated their practice boundary through their NHS profile manager. Their website providers should be helping to update all practice websites with new code.
4 – Help setting up your NHS online registration service
Your website provider should be able to help you set up the new NHS online registration service for patients wishing to join the practice. This is free for practices to use. It reduces administration and on average saves 10 minutes per patient registration. Does your website provider know how the tool works? Do they have a relationship with the implementation team at NHS England to help smooth the process for the practice?
5 – Assurance of a clinical safety officer
If you have online forms on your practice website, have they been signed off by an accredited clinical safety officer? Your website provider should have a DCB 0129 assured clinical safety officer to check all online forms. This will support the practice’s own DCB 0160 clinical risk assessment compliance requirements.
6 – Guaranteed high score on website audit tool
Does your website provider guarantee a high score when your practice website is audited using the NHS England benchmarking and improvement tool? The tool has been developed to audit the usability of key patient web journeys and is one of the key drivers in the current push to improve the quality of practice websites. Your website provider should be fully versed on how to achieve a high score using the audit tool. You can find out more about the audit tool in an article we’ve recently written for Practice Index.
Making sure you’ve chosen the right provider for your practice will improve your patients’ experience of using the website, as well as saving your team administrative time. We hope this guide will help you make an informed choice about your website provider when your contract comes up for renewal.
*Tim Green is co-founder of GPsurgery.net