Enhancing user experience (UX) and performance for the NHS Clinical Care Group of Websites

A multi-tiered website that acts to share information from the Integrated Care Board (ICB)

The Health and Care Bill came into effect on the 1st of July 2022, meaning all NHS systems around the country needed to change into Integrated Care Services (ICS). Each ICS is made up of an Integrated Care Board (ICB) who will be the new statutory bodies and Integrated Care Partnerships (ICP) who will deliver localised solutions.

This shift sees healthcare being more targeted and local, with the NHS being joined by local authorities and other organisations who will deliver services.

Designing empathy at every interaction. 

Delivering this project as part of the Herd Group we were commissioned to design and build a new website for The Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) Clinical Commissioning Group and six Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) websites.

Starting at the research phase it was important to understand what the end users and site administrators of the existing website liked and disliked about the usability and design, so we could make wholesale improvements. 

The initial research activity helped us to define our design recommendations and the agile approach to the build. All design and user experience focus was heavily on the end users, ensuring high levels of empathy at every interaction. We additionally built a fully flexible modular CMS that allows the NHS digital marketing team to effortlessly populate content.

A fully responsive and accessible inter-connected group of websites

The site was designed, built, tested and launched within a tight 6 week deadline. We are now regularly assessing how users are interacting with the website and we will make the necessary improvements to usability as insight informs. 

• UX/UI
• Wireframes
• Design and prototype
• Modular build
• Launch

Results

• Improved accessibility by 26%

• 40% uplift in site performance

• Increased organic SEO performance by 25%

• A new user interface that comfortably adapts to different screen sizes, especially mobile, which accounts for 60% of traffic.

• Integration with Microsoft Office 365 and Google Analytics 4.

• Data collection and management, including data and enquiry capture functionality, surveys, and complex surveys.

• SEO functionality, including the creation of rich snippets/schema meta data and redirections.

• Integration with Google Analytics 4, Search Console, and Tag Manager.

• Robust search functionality to find NHS services in a particular area.