The document reviews the customer-centricity of NHS hospital websites, focusing on usability and the completion of key tasks such as canceling appointments and finding hospital information. It discusses the survey methods and findings from 433 UK councils and nine hospitals, revealing issues like inadequate information and navigational difficulties. The document emphasizes the importance of designing websites around top customer tasks to enhance user experience.

1. How customer-centric
are hospital websites?
Martin Greenwood
Socitm Insight Programme Manager

2. Our experience
• Better connected: annual survey into state of local
authority websites since 1999
• Website take-up service since 2004 now used by
140 councils across the UK
• Surveys commissioned by government
• Reports on best practice
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3. Our experience
• We also run up to five events each year
based on this work, eg
• Building Perfect Council Websites
(14 July 2012)
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4. Our review
• Survey of all 433
UK council websites
• Main survey of 210
questions by team
of 12 reviewers
• Supplemented by extra surveys (eg social media)
and third party data (eg RNIB, Hitwise)
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5. How we assessed websites
• № of customer journeys for top tasks
(5 to 9, depending upon council type)
• № of usability criteria – maximum of 4
(Navigation, search engine, A to Z and
accessibility)
• Overall reviewer rating – from 1 (poor) to
3 (very good)
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6. Customer journey for top tasks
• Apply for council job For each task
• Object to planning application
• Find rubbish collection days • Ease of finding (eg arrival
• Pay council tax from Google, use of
• Renew library book search, A to Z,
• Find opening times for local information architecture
swimming pool and
• Find records office opening landing pages)
times
• Find out about getting help at
home • Ease of completing
• Find out school term dates (step-by-step customer
• Find winter gritting routes journey)
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7. Success with top tasks
• Find out school term dates 80%
• Pay council tax 71%
• Find records office opening times 70%
• Apply for council job 66%
• Find rubbish collection days 63%
• Renew library book 51%
• Find winter gritting routes 48%
• Find out about getting help at home 43%
• Find opening times for swimming pool 38%
• Object to planning application 34%
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8. Success with usability
• Use of search 67% Barriers to navigation
• Accessibility 58% • Lack of consistency with service
landing pages
• Use of A to Z 53%
• Too many navigational devices
• Lack of care about naming of
• Navigation links and tasks
for top tasks 12% • Still using LGNL classification
• Use of inappropriate ‘Apply for it,
Find it, Pay for it’ structure
• Too much prime space for news,
events etc
• Below the fold navigation
• Misuse of hovering menus
• Misuse of carousels
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9. Website take-up service
• Pop-up survey offered to one in five web users
• 16 questions, eg
 What were they looking for?
 Did they find it ?
 How good was the experience?
• Used by 140 + councils
(30% of total)
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10. Website take-up service : Volumes
• 23,500 responses each month (up to 500 each
council)
• Estimated 35.9m visits per month to all UK local
government in 2011
• Each single tier / county receives average
150,000 visits per month; each shire district
40,000
• Each council on average attracts 18% of its local
residents to its site each month
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11. Q Did you find what you were
looking for today ?
Source: Website take-up service (2011)
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12. But it’s your customers that count
A few of the simpler comments
• Information about adult courses not sufficient. No information
about times or start dates or detailed information about courses..
No search function and no option to order a course prospectus
• I was looking for further information on the child care support
scheme. I have telephoned and left a message
• Leaflet on adaptations, I'll phone.
• I wanted to be able to look up requests for planning permission for
the past year. I will probably visit the planning department.
• Can I burn wood in the back garden ? I'll call to find out
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13. Cost of web visit failures (England)
Cost of failure (per month)
(£2.83 per failed visit)
Shire county (x 27) £2.58m
Shire district (x 201) £4.95m
London borough (x 33) £2.70m
Metropolitan district (x 36) £3.78m
Unitary (E) (x 56) £3.77m
Total £17.78m
For full year £213m
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14. Importance of task management
• Customer view of visit to public sector website - just a task
to carry out !
• Site should be designed around most common tasks (‘top
tasks’)
• Each site will also have huge number of low value tasks
(though still useful) which probably get in the way
of top tasks.
• Focus relentlessly on ensuring that customers can complete
their top tasks without encountering problems.
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15. Managing top tasks
• Commit to design for top tasks – be prepared to
discard other mechanisms
• Identify top tasks from all customer access
sources
• Promote top tasks consistently across site
• Label tasks clearly
• Test and measure tasks obsessively to ensure
that they work right first time, every time
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16. Top tasks in NHS hospitals
Hospital websites have diverse audience:
• Patients
• Visitors
• Employees
• News media
• Other NHS organisations
• GPs
• Suppliers
• Jobseekers etc
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17. No patients? No need for a hospital!
• A hospital needs patients, both
in-patients and out-patients
• In-patients receive visitors
• Patients and visitors should be
primary focus of the website.
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18. Top tasks for patients and visitors
What information would you expect to find on your
local hospital’s website ?
• Cancel an out-patient appointment
• Prepare for a stay in hospital
• Find out visiting hours
• Find out about car parking at the hospital
• Find out about infection prevention and control
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19. Nine hospitals examined
• Addenbrooke’s, Cambridge • Leeds General Infirmary
• St Bartholomew’s, London • Royal Victoria Infirmary,
Newcastle
• John Radcliffe, Oxford
• St Thomas’s, London
• Manchester Royal Infirmary
• Southampton General
• Queen Elizabeth, B’ham
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20. Cancel an out-patient appointment
• Does Google lead me to the task? • Can I cancel or request a new
• Does the home page link me directly to appointment online?
the task? • Am I told what will happen if I fail to
• Does an return the correct internal attend my appointment?
search result in the first three results? • Is it clear how I might obtain
• Is the task described in the A-Z? assistance, if required, to complete
• Does the service description page link this task?
medirectly to this task? • How effectively is this hospital
• Does my first click take me straight task promoting this as a task?
completion? • How do you rate the completion of
• this task?
Am I informed how I can cancel or
rearrange my outpatient appointment? • Was completing this task a ‘Wow!’
experience?
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21. 2011
29 Nov 11 Better connected hospitals 21

22. Cancel an out-patient appointment
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23. Common failures Good practice
• Inadequate information for
patients • Some great examples of
• Nightmare navigation available car parking
• facilities
Unhelpful search results
• Clinical A-Zs
• Several sites provide
• Multiple hospitals, single
domain very good infection
• Organisation-centric, prevention and control
no customer focus resources
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24. 2012
Hosp Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4 Task 5 Overall
Cancel Hospl Visiting Car Infect
appt stay hours parking control
1 Addenbr V Good V Good Satisf Satisf V Good Satisf
2 St Barts Poor Poor Poor Poor Satisf Poor
3 John R’dcliffe Satisf Poor Satisf V Good V Good Satisf
4 Manc Roy Inf NF Satisf Poor Satisf Poor Poor
5 Queen Eliz Poor Satisf Poor Satisf Satisf Satisf
6 Leeds Gen NF Satisf V Good Satisf V Good Satisf
7 Royal Vic NF Poor Poor Satisf Poor Poor
8 St Thomas’s V Good V Good V Good V Good Satisf V Good
9 Soton Gen V Good Satisf V Good Satisf V Good V Good
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25. 29 Nov 11 Better connected hospitals 25

26. “A significant improvement over the previous website
implementation but plenty of scope to make it better still, eg
implementation of top tasks. The biggest stumbling block to
using this website is finding it via Google. Very puzzling why
the old website remains live and - in some instances - why the
new website points to it.”
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27. “I'm not entirely certain why they've bothered to create
a new website. Its organisation is so poor that I doubt
anyone really finds what they're looking for unless they
want to find out how to get to the hospital!”
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28. “If you confine yourself to the Royal Infirmary part of the website
there is no obvious way of finding out information about hospital
appointments and how to cancel them. The site is a 'Wow!' (Q24) for
all the wrong reasons.”
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29. 29 Nov 11 Better connected hospitals 29

30. “Outstandingly good. In almost every respect. I can't help
wondering if they took our advice on board last year!”
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31. “WOW! What an amazingly comprehensive resource. Even
the guide to staff uniforms brightens up a dull day!”
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32. Stop press: 30 Nov strike action
No mention Mention
• Leeds General Infirmary • Queen Elizabeth, Birmingham
• St Bartholomew‘s, London • Addenbrooke‘s, Cambridge
• (Manchester Royal Infirmary) • St Thomas's. London
• (R Victoria Infirmary,
Newcastle )
• John Radcliffe, Oxford
• Southampton General
As at Mon 28 Nov
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33. How customer-centric are your websites?
• How can we improve the overall
customer experience of NHS hospital
websites?
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