Part 2: Contract requirements and some ‘good to haves’

The first part of this guide focused on some of the priority areas for optimising a practice website. In this part, Tim Green, co-founder of the digital primary care platform GPsurgery.net, has some tips on managing contract requirements for practice websites and recommends some ‘good to haves’.

There are various contract requirements that GP websites must meet. A comprehensive list is included in Part 4 of the recent guidance published by NHS England on creating a highly usable and accessible GP website for patients.

Tips on managing some of the requirements follow below.

Opening hours

Include the hours when the practice premises are open (including extended access hours) high up on the home page.

How to register

Consider enrolling your practice with the new NHS online registration service for patients in England. One of the most commonly visited areas of a practice website, how to register, is often confusing or badly presented. Indeed, the government’s 2020/21 GP Bureaucracy Review identified GP registration as a high-volume and difficult task for both practices and patients.

The new service helps to streamline the process. You can self-enrol your practice through the NHS Profile Manager or by contacting the NHS registration and onboarding team. There are full instructions on how to enrol here.

Boundary map

Including the boundary map for the practice area helps patients check if they’re eligible to register. This saves patient time and reduces phone calls to the practice.

Professional qualifications

The professional qualifications for every healthcare professional providing services under the contract held by the practice must be included with their name on the website. This is a requirement for practice nurses and other clinical staff, as well as doctors.

CQC rating

In England, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rating for the practice must be included on the website. The website footer is an appropriate area for the CQC widget to be displayed. Your web developer will find the code for the CQC widget on the CQC website.

Accessibility statement

It is a legal requirement for all public sector bodies to include an accessibility statement on their websites.

If you’re a PLUS member, you can find a ready made Accessibility Statement [PLUS] here.

Data Protection Officer

Often overlooked, the name of your Data Protection Officer (DPO) and their contact details must be published in the same area of the website as the practice privacy notice.

Health campaigns

The website is a great place for publishing information to help patients help themselves. Follow this link for an example of how the latest public health campaigns could be displayed on a practice website.

Avoid…

Uploading a practice leaflet

All the information required to be included in the practice leaflet should also be published on the practice website. You do not need to include the actual leaflet on the website too. This is simply duplicating information and doubling the effort required to keep everything up to date.

Repeating information available elsewhere

Resist the urge to rewrite or copy information about a specific condition or concern (often in relation to press coverage – recently Strep A, for example). Add a very short alert or news item to your website instead, with a link to a trusted source of information. This way, your message remains valid even if the advice changes. The NHS and other trusted sources will keep the information you linked to up to date.

Good to have…

Meaningful link text

Well-written, meaningful link text will help signpost your patients to where they want to go. More importantly, meaningful link text makes your website more accessible, particularly for those with visual impairments who are using screen readers. Avoid using text like ‘click here’, ‘more’ or ‘read more’, and avoid using URLs for link text.

Watch this video for tips on writing meaningful link text.

Website analytics

Do you know how many patients use your website and which pages they’re visiting? Do you know when they’re visiting and how they’re finding the website? Knowing where people are going and what they’re looking for will help you understand which parts of the website are important and what needs to be a priority for keeping up to date. Your website provider should be able to help you access and understand your website analytics.

Watch this video for more on website analytics.

NHS feedback

Add a link to your NHS feedback page to make it easy for patients to leave a review. Also, consider adding a feedback form[PLUS] to the website for patients to contact the practice directly.

Finally, delegate responsibility…

The practice website is an important communications platform for patients. Make sure there are at least two members of the practice team who know how to edit and update the website. If the phone lines go down, or the practice is dealing with some other emergency, you then have the back-up to quickly post a message for patients on the website. Document a workflow for adding urgent alerts and updates.

If you’re looking for content to add to a news or blog page within your website on a more regular basis, Practice Index bring you ready prepared segments every month. Focused on current heath topic, awareness days and information for your patients, you can simply copy and paste this on your own site! Find them here in Marketing Alerts [PLUS].

If you missed part one, click here to catch up.