Case study: NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney

NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney works with local partners to deliver primary, secondary and community services to a population of 235,000. Its vision is to provide the people of Great Yarmouth and Waveney with the fastest improving health care in England.

The challenge

NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney wanted a website to help support residents who are living with long-term conditions. The site needed to provide an online community to engage patients and provide them with access to a library of resources. This would help empower them to manage their conditions themselves. The concept was designed to meet the requirements of the Department of Health directive for patient care.

Our solution

We worked with design agency Flag to assess users’ needs and develop a recommended specification. We implemented one of the industry leading web Content Management Systems (CMS), Sitecore CMS. This enables NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney staff to simply and efficiently manage the content of the website. Non-technical staff can easily use Sitecore to maintain content, taking advantage of dedicated sign-off workflows to help ensure the quality and accuracy - and brand consistency - of information.

Our developers are Microsoft.NET specialists, which enables them to heavily customise Sitecore to deliver a number of features, making relevant content available to the target audience.

The site includes:

• The ability for users to personalise the content and news feeds to information on the long-term conditions of their choice
• A community forum for visitors to interact and exchange information and advice with experts and people suffering with similar conditions
• Integration with a directory of health-related services and support groups in the local community
• ‘Share this page’ function for people to share links and content with other social networking sites

As well as looking after the development, we also provide hosting for the NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney’s Living Life website - a combination which provides them with a cost effective, fully managed web solution.

Linda Caine, Head of Pathway Redesign and Clinical Engagement, said: “NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney has been delighted with the enthusiasm, support and professionalism provided by Flag and Eduserv. It has been an example of partnership working at its best and the resulting website is an ongoing initiative that we hope they will continue to support us with.”

www.livinglife.gyw.nhs.uk

About Eduserv

We specialise in providing web development and web hosting to public sector organisations. Our clients include NHS Direct, NHS Hammersmith and Fulham, the Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

We are a not-for-profit organisation and registered charity, governed by a board of Trustees. We fulfil our charitable mission by providing services for the public benefit.

Our services also include Access and Identity Management, which we provide to the NHS through our Athens service.

Get in touch

If you would like more information about any of our services, including hosting and development services specifically for NHS organisations, please contact John Simcock, Eduserv Account Manager. Call 01225 474357 or email john.simcock@eduserv.org.uk.