Free NHS Choices to meet public need
The internet’s unequalled capacity to inform and communicate with the public should have been comprehensively exploited by the NHS.
Instead, as the leaked NHS digital communications review starkly demonstrates, confusion and inefficiency reign.
Contrast, for example, the ability to access local authority services online with the near impossibility of digitally interacting with your GP surgery or hospital.
Why? An early lack of focus led to a rush to catch up which, in turn, saw hundreds of NHS sites burst into life with little thought of how they would be used. The financial squeeze will cull many of those sites, but it will not address the public’s number one need - a single access point through which they can reach NHS information.
Frustratingly, that access point exists in NHS Choices, for which I briefly worked following its June 2007 launch. NHS Choices boasts both the content and the basic navigational approach which could provide the organising framework for NHS digital services. Its traffic is impressive - Choices is among the top 300 websites in the UK - but its profile is low. Battles at the Department of Health restricted its marketing spend and now the cupboard is bare.
The answer is to allow it to access advertising revenues on the condition funds are ploughed back into marketing. It could best take on this challenge as part of the health secretary’s new armada of social enterprises.
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Readers' comments (1)
Jake Griffiths | 5-Aug-2010 12:40 pm
Alastair - this is an interesting take on a complex problem. My point of view (from someone uninformed in digital strategy and design!).
It strikes me that a separation of 'NHS corporate' and 'NHS public' would be helpful.
I haven't seen the research in full. If the question it is asking is "Has the money spent on nhs.uk websites benefited patients", then I find it hard to interpret. This is because the nhs.uk domain (to me) often indicates a corporate NHS site. If you type "nhs.uk" into Google, aside from Choices and Direct, you get NHS Jobs (for staff), the Information Centre (for management), Connecting for Health (for management) and Health in Wales (for management).
What is needed is a clearer separation of public and corporate - with the corporate bit pushed to the back (where web savvy corporate investigators will be able to find it).
As an example, I work with UK online centres, which reaches out to the digitally disengaged and socially excluded. It is essential that a member of the public visiting its site is able to navigate and understand it. It has two 'faces' to its web-presence - the public facing bit: www.ukonlinecentres.com and the corporate bit which is hidden in a smaller link: www.ukonlinecentres.com/corporate-pages.html. M&S is the same, it has the bit where you can buy things as a consumer: www.marksandspencer.com and the bit where you can learn about Stuart Rose and its financials: http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/?intid=gft_company
One point of access for the public would work if you could co-ordinate all of the providers and convince them to keep their sections up to date. I agree that Choices has the right architecture for this to work. But is it fair to make organisations (particularly providers) market through one central site when customer choice exists and is important?
And as for the advertising idea - a good one, but probably too early - I'd love to see the headlines!
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