Southampton City Primary Care Trust (PCT) has recently launched their new public website www.southamptonhealth.nhs.uk which aims to improve the delivery of health related information and promote health services within Southampton.
Designed to be the first port of call for over 240,000 residents, the new site provides a wealth of information from details of local GP’s, Dentists and Opticians to a latest news and job section.
In addition to the website, the PCT has also redesigned their intranet which will form a central hub of information and encourage the sharing of knowledge between 3000 members of staff throughout the trust which comprises of 4 hospitals, 5 health centres and 2 walk in centres.
By investing in content management technology, the PCT has been able to take control of their website and intranet. The simplicity of the system means that non-technical members of staff are now able to create and maintain both sites, improving the quality and timeliness of information whilst reducing the burden on IT departments.
The website is designed in a user-friendly format, with a clear navigation structure. On-line directories, event calendars and useful link functionality have been utilised to help visitors to locate information easily, eliminating the need to browse through numerous pages of content.
Sarah Reed, Website Editor for Southampton City PCT comments “The new website has moved away from being a purely informative site to one that offers its visitors and staff the opportunity to get involved through signing up to the mailing list or sharing their thoughts and ideas through the discussion forum. The ability to compile online forms and databases within EasySite has also added a new dimension to the way the Trust gives out and receives information.”
For website editors, the integrated asset manager functionality (document library) enables them to upload, store, share and retrieve an unlimited number of documents and multimedia files. The Trust meets the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act by classifying which assets can be searchable by the public and categorising them by the various FOI classes.
The Trust has also complied with the NHS website guidelines, the recommendations of web accessibility guidelines (W3C) and the requirements of Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) to ensure that the website is accessible to everyone, by offering a low graphic version of the site alongside alt tags, skip navigation options and the correct use of hyperlinks.
“The next step for the Trust is to create a community of websites. The flexibility of the solution means that partnering organisations such as local GP’s, Dentists and Opticians can create and maintain their own website, each with a distinct design and domain name” added Sarah
