Physician, heal thyself
According to Google there are 56 million pages on the web under the nhs.uk domain. An NHS review has found that it has too many websites, they cost too much, and too many are just not accessible.
The Department of Health conducted a digital communications review in June and according to the recently leaked report it found there were 4,121 separate websites under the NHS umbrella, although more than a thousand of them could not be accessed when audited. About a third of the remaining sites failed to meet web accessibility guidelines, and half the sites did not provide an email address for further information.
The thousands of sites covered all layers of the NHS, from the top level government departments and NHS Direct, down to sites set up for individual GP surgeries. Not surprisingly, the 671 websites set up by family doctors were heavily criticised, with the researchers taking issue with 60% of them, saying "GP surgeries were the weakest of all the website types in the sparse offering of features and functionality". It should be pointed out that these would typically be the ones done on the smallest budget and with the least access to any sort of web expertise, and that surgeries have had to resort to creating their own sites due to lack of support from the NHS infrastructure.
A bigger criticism should be aimed at the middle layers of the NHS bureaucracy, represented by websites built by primary care trusts, foundation trusts and strategic health authorities which, according to the report, received "almost no recognition" from the public and about which the researchers said "The question is raised why these sites were developed in the first instance?"
And the cost of all this? The report estimates that the cost of running the sites could be as high as £86 million a year. That figure does not include the start-up and development costs and may not include the unpaid or unaccounted for hours that smaller sites spend on self-update, so total spend is almost certainly higher.
In response to the report, Alastair McLellan, editor of the Health Service Journal, said that it revealed the confusion and inefficiency at the heart of the NHS. Although there are thousands of sites "none of them helps the public which needs a single point to access the information". The research similarly warned that "the confidence of the public in the NHS brand may be diminished". Patients wanted to see "one NHS" online rather than a proliferation of websites.
Another perspective was offered by Jon Hoeksma, editor of E-Health Insider: "The problem with most NHS websites is that you the patient cannot do the things you want to do, like booking a doctor's appointment or requesting prescriptions or getting someone to give you a call about a problem."
We shouldn't be too surprised at these findings, only at the scale of them. Too many organisations, both within government and the private sector, take a very poor approach to web design. Too many people assume that "design" is all about colour and style, and overlook key issues such as accessibility, ergonomics, functionality and objectives, security, and the ongoing development needed to keep a site vibrant and healthy in a world of ever-changing technology. It happens in small companies, and it happens in large organisations. Why should the NHS be any different?
24th August 2010
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.