You may think that getting your GP surgery website online and running it is a complicated task, the process however is actually quite straightforward. Here’s a guide for getting your practice online, what you need to prepare and what happens after your GP website is live on the internet.

Your surgery website name. You will need a domain name for your website to be available on the internet:Your practice will already have a name so you could choose to use that if it is free to register, if not then think of some alternatives that you like (short, easy to remember domains are preferable, you should also avoid numbers and hyphens).

If you do not already have a domain we will help find the best suited name and register it for you. When you register a .uk domain name you enter into a contract with Nominet who administer all .uk domain names. The domain registration period lasts for two years, at the end of which you can extend this for a further two years. This renewable process continues for a long as you wish (& pay the fee, usually around £8 for 2 years).

Consider the website as a book. A book has pages and a website is no different so you need to plan:What pages (& titles) you will have ( such as ‘Opening hours’ and ‘Contact details’ and ‘Appointments’). Then prepare the content for each page, for the examples above you would need the surgery opening times, telephone number and address details, and information about your appointments system e.g. how to make an appointment, what are the times you see patients. Save the page content to a text or word document.

Who at your practice is the contact that email will be sent to? Have ready the email address of those who are responsible for email correspondence and website contact forms.

That’s it! Once you have the above you are ready to get a presence online. You will have to have someone to look after or administer your site as you may need to add new content, or update the blog if you choose to have one, and amend any information that requires it. You can be ‘hands on’ or if you choose, we will do this for you.