Websites
Medical website design: what patients look for, and what the rules ask
Michele Caddeo ·
A medical website answers before the reception desk does: one page per treatment, with the price, how long it takes and how to book. In England, a CQC-registered service with a rating must show it on its website within 21 calendar days of publication. Claims about results must not be false or misleading, and the booking form should ask only what you need to book.
Most questions a clinic answers by phone have the same answer every time: the price of an appointment, what to bring, where to park. The website can give it before the patient calls, at eleven at night too, and to people who don’t know you yet.
What do patients look for on a clinic website?
The answers they ask reception for today.
The pages
Each page answers a call reception would otherwise take
One page per treatment
What happens?A cardiology appointment and a Holter test get two pages, each named the way patients say it, with what happens and how long it takes.
One page per clinician
Who will I see?Qualifications, specialism and a real photo. People booking want to know who they’ll meet.
Price and what it includes
What does it cost?Say whether the report or the follow-up is included.
How to book
When can I come?A phone number in one tap on every page, reception hours or an online calendar, and what to bring.
Then where you are: the address with a map, the nearest parking and a photo of the entrance. If the clinic is on the third floor, say whether there’s a lift. Before going live, open every page on a phone and try calling the clinic.
What do the rules ask of a medical website in the UK?
Three sources set the frame for most clinics in England.
Before you publish
Three checks for a clinic website
Your CQC rating, if you have one
Shown on the website no later than 21 calendar days after the CQC publishes it. The CQC provides a widget that displays it correctly.
Honest claims
The GMC asks doctors not to share information that is false or misleading, not to misrepresent their experience and qualifications, and to follow the CAP, ASA and CMA codes when they advertise.
Health data handled with care
Data concerning health is a special category under the GDPR, which the UK keeps as UK GDPR. Collect only what you need to book.
Sources: CQC, how providers must display ratings, GMC, using social media as a medical professional, GDPR, Article 9. Other professions, such as dentists or physiotherapists, have their own regulator: read its advertising guidance too.
What should the booking form ask?
A name, a phone number or email, and the appointment type. Someone who writes “I’ve had high blood pressure for months” is giving you health data, and the symptoms can wait for the consultation.
Then two things.
- A privacy notice, linked next to the form, saying who handles the data and why.
- A cookie banner, only if you need one. Cookies that are strictly necessary for the service the visitor asked for don’t need consent; the others do (ICO).
How do patients find a clinic nearby?
With your Google Business Profile and treatment pages that name the town: “echocardiogram in Reading”. If several clinicians see patients at your clinic, each can have a profile of their own; Google’s guidelines cover individual practitioners such as doctors (Google). Keep name, address and hours identical on the profile and on the site. The guide to Google Business Profile covers the set-up.
How much does a medical website cost?
I haven’t found ranges for clinic sites from a neutral source, so I use the general UK ones: Startups.co.uk puts a web designer at £300 to £10,000 and more, and a typical small business site at about 12 weeks of agency work, £6,000 to £96,000.
The quote goes up with these lines.
- How many treatments and clinicians, because each is a page to write and keep current.
- The copy, if the designer writes it. It has to be written for patients and checked against the rules above.
- Booking. A form that sends an email costs little. An online calendar costs more, because appointment types, lengths, breaks, closures and reminders all have to be set up.
Before you sign, ask three questions. Is the domain in your name, and do you hold the logins? Who updates the site after launch, and what does it cost each year? Where do booking data end up, and who can read them? The guide to website costs shows how to compare quotes over three years.
Where do you start?
For one week, reception writes down the questions that come in, by phone and by message. The ones that come back most often are the first pages to write.
Send them in the brief, with the appointments you want to fill. After a free video call I send a written quote, line by line. If you want to see a piece of the site first, the fixed-price prototype costs €450, no VAT added, and comes off the quote in full if we go ahead within 60 days.
