GP website health check

Healthwatch Sheffield wanted to explore whether people were making good use of GP online services, following feedback from local people.  In December 2022, staff and volunteers assessed the content of 74 GP websites across Sheffield.

Most websites contain a great deal of information which should be useful for prospective and existing patients. While some make it easy to find this information, many are challenging to navigate. Information is not clearly organised, up to date, or located where patients would expect to find it.

Most practices set out the process of registering as a patient and making an appointment quite clearly. However, patients would benefit from greater choice in the ways they can do this, including more online options. Online services beyond registering and making an appointment are not widespread.

Many practices do not seem to have considered the whole online ‘journey’ when setting out their online offer, with patients still having to call or visit the surgery at some point while registering as a patient or to access online services.

Over three in five practices ask for proof of ID and/or proof of address in order to register (with 22% making clear this is absolutely required). Requiring ID is not in alignment with NHS policy, and disproportionately impacts some communities such as refugees and homeless people.

 All practices offer at least two ways to order prescriptions, meaning patients have a good level of choice – though this is sometimes presented in a confusing or overwhelming way.

The least consistent pages across websites were those that offered supplementary information and advice - including pages about Patient Participation Groups (PPGs), support for carers, and wider health and wellbeing/self-help support for patients. Though many practices had clearly done a great deal of work on these pages at some point, they were the most likely to be out of date, have broken web links, or be incomplete.

Information about making a complaint or leaving other feedback was rarely detailed, meaning patients will not always know what their rights are or what they should expect.

Accessibility features are not widespread – just over half of websites had a translation tool embedded, but there were very few which had other features, such as Easy Read information, or the option to change various elements of the display (font, colours etc).

The report contains eight recommendations for GP practices on how to improve their websites for patients and four for the Integrated Care Board on how they can support GPs to develop their websites.