News

The latest central resource for NHS London information, news and updates has successfully launched.

The communications team at NHS London were concerned that the vast number of newsletters and e-bulletins were being created and delivered in a less than targeted or coordinated fashion, leading to duplication of content, effort and cost. They were keen to remedy this with the implementation of one single system online to monitor and store all messages, information and news.

Our main challenge was to create a welcoming interface for the user, encouraging engagement and subscription for alerts in various formats. We also devised an effective administration interface that makes content entry easy and is hoped to encourage stakeholders to contribute high quality and well categorised content on a regular basis.

To ensure this, it was essential that the CMS allowed contributors to submit content for approval by the central team of 'super users' seamlessly. It needed to be an effective and somewhere these 'super users' could easily maintain, update, and control content, avoiding duplication and repetition.

While incorporating the NHS blue and white, the site also harnesses some London character with the Thames running through the headline banner image. We developed a new information architecture as well, sensitive to the needs of key stakeholders and users. Overall, the site has a clean, stream-lined, modern look.

Open to NHS London's varied audience including, GPs, chief executives, local authorities, MPs, interest and patient groups and resilience partners, it is intended to be a resource where users can log in, subscribe to email updates and/or RSS feed, on areas of interest to them.

The overall hope is for it to make NHS London's communications more efficient and relevant while removing duplication.

Since going live, other strategic health authorities across the UK have expressed interest in doing something similar which is a real win for everyone who worked so hard on this project. Well done!

Visit the site and sign up here, www.mynhsalerts.london.nhs.uk.