An effective, user friendly website can be an asset for your surgery and benefit both patients and staff. How can you ensure it is fit for purpose? Technology expert Michael Penston provides some tips
There are many benefits of a well-designed and managed website. And for both practices and PCNs, the advantages will compound over time because good digital access is becoming ever more important.
It will save patients time because they will no longer have to wait in phone queues or for the practice to open. They will also not need to take notes on any instructions given during an in-person interaction.
It’s good for the practice staff too. We no longer need to spend time transcribing paper forms, taking phone calls with requests, and manually checking postcode catchments or following flowcharts. Where patients can use technology, staff can signpost them to the website for information. Furthermore, it can serve as a point of reference for staff, so everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.
Signposting to high-quality advice from the NHS and more appropriate services, such as pharmacies, 111, or 999, vastly improves safety and quality of care. It can also help save appointments and contribute to capacity and access improvement payments.
ICBs are now focusing on good digital access, which is a positive move and there is often funding available for improvement work to websites. However, resources still need to be deployed to manage any workstream and a website doesn’t manage itself.
So, exactly how can a good website make a difference? How do you achieve it, and what pitfalls should you seek to avoid?
Benefits
An obvious benefit of a good website is communication. Patients can find answers to their queries without needing to phone or visit the practice, saving time for staff and patients alike. The website at my practice gets 200k hits annually. It has many self-service modules we’ve added over time and carefully written content.
Making it easy for patients to find answers creates a positive perception of the practice and a functional website with useful links will help dissipate the Monday morning rush. Staff can refocus their time on complex cases and provide support to those who are unable to use technology.
Another advantage of a good website is the ability to automate. Is there a time-consuming paper process at your practice? This can be digitised and your practice website is the digital gateway between you and your patients.
To do that, you identify the information needed for requests, validate that information automatically, and then pass it to your staff to complete the easy bit.
What type of website?
There is no basic NHS version. Instead, there are packages from suppliers that meet the minimum contractual requirements. The trouble with an off-the-shelf website is that the minimum is not really enough and there can be issues with maintenance. They are not bad by any means but they do still need to be tailored to the practice.
To make the most of your website, you need to keep it up to date and let the specific demands on your practice inform how you use it. So, the website should receive a full redesign every few years to refocus content. Processes and tools change and the way we communicate our service to patients must evolve alongside them.
If you have technical people working for you then you can build it from scratch. However, this will take a lot of upfront time (probably weeks) and will require continuous maintenance. Meeting NHS accessibility guidelines can be quite time-consuming and often involves reinventing the wheel. And the design, which is an important component for usability, needs to be consistent with the NHS identity guidelines.
A middle ground would be to go with a well-designed GP practice site from a commercial provider and then link to any more advanced custom tools hosted externally. In the first instance, I would tend to prioritise design and information over advanced functionality.
What to include
Having a clear and concise menu is essential. Many practice websites lack proper instructions on how to complete basic tasks such as booking appointments, requesting prescriptions, and viewing test results.
Give multiple avenues for accessing services. For example, to book an appointment, you can:
a) complete an online consultation
b) phone reception on this number
c) send an email to this address
d) visit the practice.
It may seem obvious, but it reassures patients to see their options set out and it gives you the opportunity to incorporate other digital tools, such as self-booking links or online consultation.
Always keep the user in mind when designing a website. That goes for the language used and usability of the website.
When writing text, consider reading age, sentence complexity, and supporting images. Simple and concise is best. Include bullet points, numbered lists, and make effective use of bold text. It is also worth thinking about patients with language barriers.
Usability
A rule of thumb is that if you have important information to share, it’s best to embed it within your processes.
For example, if you don’t work in primary care, you may not know what an ‘e-consult’ is so, instead of a button directing patients to the online consultation tool, have one that says, ‘get help from a doctor’. That can take users to a page explaining what an e-consultation is and then link to your booking tool from there.
Avoid pop-ups on the website’s front page where possible because they can make it difficult to use. If the website is so cluttered that it’s difficult to locate information, patients will quickly default to the phone. Just like the front door to your house, keep your home page clear of obstructions.
There’s nothing wrong with highlighting something pressing and current – perhaps via a short bulletin on your homepage – but these items need to be removed just as fast as they are added. There are some practices that still have COVID information on their front page.
Continuous improvement
Review the content regularly, add helpful modules, and check for broken links. Much like tidying your house, it needs to be done often, or it will get cluttered again.
Over time, you may design your own web tools specific to the challenges you face as a practice. Make sure your processes consider that you will have multiple avenues of achieving one task (a fundamentally good thing). You must design content through the patient’s eyes.
The NHS App has integrations with clinical systems that can rapidly expedite processes such as repeat prescriptions and appointment booking. Encouraging this through the website is to be encouraged so bear that in mind if you design your own integrations. There is no need to reinvent the wheel especially when existing solutions are more convenient for patients and practice.
A word of warning: do not replace processes with online-only ones. Some patients do not have access to technology or struggle to use it. Keep a traditional route available and freely open for everything. Your aim should be to make online services so easy that patients naturally prefer them over calling you rather than inadvertently excluding people.
At the time of writing, Michael Penston was digital transformation lead for Southampton North PCN.
A version of this article first appeared on our sister publication Pulse PCN.
