GP website accessibility summary report
Download (PDF 357.24 KB)Summary of report content
Healthwatch Leeds invited a diverse group of people, including those with learning disabilities, visual and hearing impairments and people with English as a second language, to test five surgeries’ (or group surgeries’) websites. In line with NHS England’s GP website web audit tool, the testers assessed whether the website met each criterion “well”, “adequately” or “inadequately”. They broke down the testing into three different focus areas:
1. Finding the appointment page and information about booking an appointment. This includes information about online consultation tools, such as PATCHs.
2. Finding the prescriptions page and information about ordering repeat prescriptions.
3. Website accessibility for people with additional communication needs.
They gave the testers 18 criteria from the NHSE benchmarking tool to use in their evaluations. However, due to the time and support required for group members with additional communication needs, they focused on a smaller number of criteria. Once the testers had handed in their evaluations, Healthwatch converted them into a set of scores.
They analysed the findings in two ways. First, they assessed how people with additional communication needs rated each website. Second, they assessed how people without additional needs rated it.
Healthwatch provided detailed findings and recommendations for each website in their dedicated reports. All websites had strengths and weaknesses. Here are some of the commonalities they identified:
1. People with additional needs consistently rated the websites lower than people without. This suggests that people with needs remain at a disadvantage when using the websites.
2. All websites have some areas in which they are performing well, according to the testers, without additional needs.
3. All websites had areas in which they could provide more information.
4. Some websites are performing markedly better than others in terms of accessibility. The following common issues were identified:
• There is a lack of provision for people who use British Sign Language.
• All websites’ writing and structure could be simplified to make them more accessible to people with additional needs.
• When websites provided translations, the quality wasn’t always flawless.
The report has three recommendations to make GP websites more accessible.