Leicester hospitals trust website hits new highs

The University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust is claiming its revamped website has become one of the most visited hospital sites in the UK.

The findings come from online analytics service, Hitwise, who measure the amount of clicks for a number of NHS and private hospitals’ sites. In the second quarter of the year, UHL broached Hitwise’s top ten.

A spokesperson for the trust told E-Health Insider that it had worked with online usability specialists, the Nielsen Norman Group (NNG), to improve the navigation of the website making it easier for patients to use and understand.

The trust added it was pleased with the positive feedback it has received from patients and staff since the site was re-launched in April. Hitwise has recorded a 400% increase in traffic on the new site.

Web editor Greta Smalley told E-Health Insider that the cost of the usability study had been in the “thousands”, and had proven money well spent.

Smalley told EHI: “More than four times as many pages are being viewed by people from all over the world this year compared to last year and the number of web pages clicked on has shot up from 250,000 to over 1,000,000 page views so far this year.”

The recommendations from the NNG report on revamping the website led to a number of changes being made to the website by the trust’s web team.

“We altered the navigational structure of it and made it clearer and easier to navigate the website and find what they were looking for. We also added indexes on the home page, so that new users could easily click on the tabs and find what they were looking for, or even just to browse the site,” explained Smalley.

Popular features on the site are the e-greetings service and the job vacancies search, as well as the advice and information for patients before they come in for treatment and patient feedback has been positive.

As part of the rebuild, Smalley and her team now use a new content manager system and work hard to ensure that all the latest trust information is placed on the website. Planned future developments include adding basic healthcare tips. Smalley told EHI that she hopes people from around the world will use the website for information.

“We are very pleased with the rate of hits going up since we updated the site and we now plan on adding general health information on the website, such as diets and nutrition and basic life skills, as well as the usual hospital information, so that patients are kept informed and use the website instead of the telephone etc.”

The University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust now share the top ten with Addenbrooke’s Hospital, part of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, specialist eye hospital Moorfields, Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust and a number of private healthcare facilities and companies.

Hitwise’s top 10 hospital websites show that ULH NHS trust was the most visited hospital site residing at an .nhs.uk domain.

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University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust