Developing a website for the Thames Valley & Surrey Care Records
SCW were asked to develop a website to support the Thames Valley and Surrey Local Health and Care Record Partnership (TVS LHCR).
The aims of the website are to:
- Explain what the TVS Care Records are, how they will benefit patient care and how they will support health and care staff in delivering that care
- Provide core information about the partnership, its purpose and plans
- Show how the TVS Care Records relates to existing local health and care records programmes, including links through to local NHS websites e.g. Berkshire’s Share Your Care
- Provide up-to-date information on progress and developments
- Gives information about privacy and cyber security
The website audience includes a wide variety of stakeholders, from patients/public to clinicians/staff in across health and social care. The language used and content needed for these audiences may be very different and so two distinct areas of the website were designed to be accessible from the homepage - one for local people and one for health and care staff.
The website was developed with ongoing engagement from lay members of the Ethics & Engagement group, and key clinicians and staff from across the programme. Areas of focus for engagement included:
- Language and terminology - the need for simple and consistent language to be used throughout, without any jargon.
- Accessibility – not just in terms of complexity of language – but also to support a variety of user/patient accessibility needs, including the use of videos and resources from 'Understanding Patient Data'
- Branding - Stakeholders were involved in the choice and design of and appropriate logo for the TVS Care Records (a NHS could not be used as this is designed to integrate both health AND social care)
- Benefits and patient outcomes – the website needed to highlight the benefits and patient outcomes that will be delivered as a result of this programme.
- IG and FAQs – the need to ensure the essential IG Q&As were agreed by all IG/security leads.
By developing the website in partnership with both health and care staff, the public and key programme leads we were able to deliver a website that effectively supports the day-to-day work of the programme. As programmes evolve, so do the needs of websites. Therefore SCW has very recently completed a second review of the website by engaging with the Ethics & Engagement group to ensure greater focus on the care records itself and what that means for patients, any changes in the programme as a result of COVID-19 and other updates.
The website can be seen live here: https://www.thamesvalleysurreycarerecords.net/