NHS Choices criticised over duff information

The Department of Health’s new flagship website NHS Choices contains GP practice information which in some cases is at much as six years out-of-date, EHI Primary Care has learnt.

Doctors claim the new multi-million pound site, developed by Dr Foster Intelligence together with LBi and Sapient, contains incorrect information on GP surgeries including inaccurate opening hours, out-of-date information about partners and errors on practice staff and clinic timings.

At the same time listings of primary care trusts, mental health trusts and strategic health authorities have become much more difficult to find compared with the old nhs.uk site, according to NHS staff.

The new chairman of the BMA, east Yorkshire GP Dr Hamish Meldrum, this week also criticised the site’s ‘health profile calculator’ which enables individuals to identify the top five conditions they would be most likely to be hospitalised for by putting in their sex, gender and postcode. He told the BBC such general information would not help people but may cause information overload for patients and create additional anxiety.

He added: “ We all share the desire for patients and the public to be as well informed as possible but this is gimmicky and over simplistic and may cause unnecessary worries.”

Dr Trefor Roscoe, a GP in Sheffield, said the public were in danger of being “grossly misled” by the information on GP surgeries on the site.  He told EHI primary Care: “According to the site we still open on Saturday morning which we last did about six years ago.”

A check on the information contained on ten surgeries around the country by EHI Primary Care discovered that at least a third contained errors such as out-of-date opening times or partner listings.

Dr Mary Hawking, a GP in Bedfordshire, said she had complained about inaccurate information on the old nhs.uk site and that although she felt the new NHS Choices site provided some additional information there were errors, including a map of her home town which she claims is at least six years out-of-date.

She added: “The information on GPs is still inaccurate: it doesn’t list clinics, opening hours are inaccurate, most have no facilities or clinics listed, and the list of staff is grossly out of date: in other words I suspect this was taken, unchecked, from NHS England UK.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health told EHI Primary Care that if GPs discovered that their practice’s data on NHS Choices was out-of-date they should contact the web editor at their primary care trust or telephone NHS Choices on 0845 4023089.