Website design
Your practice website holds a wealth of useful links and services that patients may need and can benefit from. Patients should be encouraged to visit your website to help them understand what services are available to them and, if needed, to enable them to help themselves before contacting the practice to seek a face to face appointment with their GP.
It is worth checking what your practice website looks like on a mobile device, as 2 out of every 3 eConsult is carried out on a mobile or tablet.
eConsult website banner
Patients access eConsult on your practice website, so it is important that the eConsult banner is well placed. It should be easy and obvious to find on the landing page. Including the patient-facing video also helps patients understand how it works. You can add additional smaller banners to other frequently visited or related pages, such as the ‘Results’, ‘Appointments’, ‘Online services’ and ‘Contact us’ pages. We have more information on practice website banner here.
Below you’ll find what your eConsult banner will look like, along with coding for you to share with you website provider. Using the eConsult Dynamic Overlay banner below means that you do not need to move information around on your website to make space:
Click here to see what this looks like on a live site.
Please speak with your Operations Executive you can provide you the code to add to your site.
If eConsult hasn’t launched yet for your practice, the banner will still work – it will display a “Coming soon” message until we make your system ‘Live’. The banner code is associated with your practice website address and will work automatically. If your website address changes please notify us and we will guide you through next steps.
You can customise your dynamic banner, click here for details.
Improving your practice website
Some of the feedback we get from patients is about how hard it can be to find information on practice websites. These are our top three suggestions for good website design, all designed to keep your patients online for as long as possible, instead of calling the practice with any and all queries.
Put key information on your landing page
Make sure it’s easy for patients to find the information that they might otherwise call the practice for. Common topics might include: administrative queries, updating personal details, booking appointments online, repeat prescriptions and practice/team information.
Drive patients online using the dynamic banner
A prominent eConsult banner will make it easy for patients to access the platform. The dynamic banner pops up as soon as you land on the website meaning it is the first thing patients see, but can easily be minimised to the bottom of the screen. Another option is to have a static banner on your home page, ideally in a prominent location, so it is one of the first things patients see.
Encourage an online interaction, not a call
Remove your practice phone number from your website’s home page (and your Google business account if you’re feeling brave) and move it to the ‘Contact us’ section. This will reduce the number of people calling straight after having searched for your practice, and drive people onto your website.
You can use https://ready.mobi/ to see how your website looks on both desktops and different mobile devices, as well as how it compares to other practices.
If you need some advice on who can help you redesign your website, we like these from Tree View Designs (http://https://treeviewdesigns.co.uk/):
- https://www.oaklandshealthcentre.com/
- https://www.rollemedicalpartnership.co.uk/
- https://www.lawmedicalgrouppractice.co.uk/