Creating a seamless flow for patients, network staff and your practice teams
Communicating with your patients about shared services provided through your primary care network can be challenging.
The focus needs to be on creating a seamless patient flow between the GP website and the PCN website.
Your PCN website should simplify the patient journey and reduce the burden on both PCN and GP practice teams.
With a PCN website from GPsurgery.net you can…
Allow patients to book extended access appointments*
Reduce the burden on your admin team by centralising your extended access and ARRS role appointment booking system on the PCN website. This makes it easier for you, less stressful for your GPs and clearer for patients.
Centralise your self-referral system
Setting up self-referrals for social prescribing on the PCN website eases the burden on individual GP practices. Online forms reduce the admin of sorting and passing information on by putting the data directly into the hands of the people who need it – your social prescribers.
Host a calendar of community events
Providing a centralised calendar of community events on the PCN website helps your social prescribers promote activities and support groups for patients. Links to the calendar can be shared with the GP practices in your network allowing a seamless patient flow.
Publish information about screening and other services
Use your PCN website as a central information hub where patients can be directed via links from the GP practice website to learn more about the shared services available through the PCN.
Promote key public health campaigns
The PCN website can provide patients with a trusted source of health information and campaigns relevant to their local area. Practices can save time too, by directing patients to the PCN website rather than uploading health campaign information directly to their own site.
Broadcast content to all the GP practice websites in the PCN**
With a GPsurgery.net PCN site you can publish news, alerts, job vacancies and pages on the PCN site and broadcast them across all the individual GP practice websites. This saves admin time and avoids duplicating information by hand.
Case study:
Three Harbours and Bosvena PCN and its four GP practices are making full use of the flexibility provided by the GPsurgery.net digital platform.
The PCN is in Cornwall, with patients cared for at surgery sites located in Bodmin, Fowey, Launceston, Lostwithiel, Par and St Blazey.
‘The PCN website provides the digital hub linking the four practices in the network,’ says Dom Cook, PCN Digital Transformation Lead. ‘One of its key functions is to inform patients about our shared services, such as clinical pharmacists, first contact physiotherapists, social prescribers and community paramedics.’
‘It’s also a useful way of explaining to the public that some of our staff work across the network, rather than at one specific practice.’
Built on GPsurgery.net’s NHS-themed PCN template, the website clearly signposts patients to the individual practice websites, which are built on the GPsurgery.net Flexi template. This offers options for practices to incorporate their own branding and photography, while adhering to NHS design standards.
Compliance with the NHS website benchmarking and improvement tool was a key criteria for Dom and the practice managers in making GPsurgery.net their website provider of choice. Other features, such as a social prescribing self-referral form and a jobs board that allows practices to advertise available roles via the PCN, were also important factors in the decision-making process.
The service and support provided by GPsurgery.net has proved to be equally important. ‘We’ve built an excellent relationship with GPsurgery.net,’ says Dom. ‘We’re always recommending them – we like them and they’re a great team to work with.’
If you would like to discuss the website requirements for your PCN and the practices in your network please get in touch. We would be pleased to talk you through our service and answer your questions.
We want to make our websites work for you. If there are services you can’t see here but would like to use on your website, please let us know.
PCN website FAQs
Why do I need a PCN website?
While you don’t need to have a PCN site by law, having an accessible site that allows seamless patient flow between the GP website and the PCN website one is a useful way to keep your patients informed about shared services provided through the PCN. It can also reduce the burden on practices by centralising self-referrals and booking s for extended access and ARRS role appointments.
How do I make sure my PCN website is accessible?
At GPsurgery.net, we have worked to ensure that our websites are compliant with The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (known as WCAG). Further information about the WCAG can be found here.
We regularly review and update our templates in line with NHS guidance on creating a highly usable and accessible GP website, which includes specific content relating to PCN websites.
The content you upload to your website is ultimately your responsibility, but we will work with you to ensure that your content remains accessible.
Can we have centralised booking through a PCN website?
We recommend that you enable centralised appointment booking through a specialist supplier and link to this from the PCN website. We work with specialists who can provide standalone appointment booking for your PCN, including appointment booking that writes back to the clinical system in some cases. Get in touch with our team for more information.
Do you provide online forms with your PCN websites?
We provide access to a library of standard forms, including for self-referral to social prescribing and other shared services. We also provide a bespoke forms service – chat to us about custom forms.
Can I have a PCN website with GPsurgery.net if the practices in the network use other website providers?
Our broadcast system now allows us to broadcast content to GP websites hosted by most website providers. Please contact us for more information about this service.
Will the website ‘feel’ like a website for an NHS service?
We’ve worked hard to make our websites professional and familiar, taking note of the NHS style guidelines.
Will the PCN website be mobile friendly?
Yes, GPsurgery.net’s websites are all designed to work on mobile devices and on desktop computers.
I’m a GP – will the PCN website replace the website for my practice?
Generally speaking, PCN websites are designed to work alongside individual practice websites and provide information specifically about PCN-wide services.
The NHS guidance on creating a highly usable GP website suggests that for some PCNs, a single web solution for all practices can be a good way to improve consistency across the PCN. Follow this link for NHS guidance on a single web solution for PCNs and their practices.
*Centralised appointment booking may require a PCN version of your clinical system or a third party service.
**All practices in your network must subscribe to GPsurgery.net for our broadcast feature to work. We also have a product to allow broadcasting across GP websites from different providers. Contact us for more details.