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Creating a new NHS England: Health Education England, NHS Digital and NHS England have merged. More about the merger.

NHS.UK roadmap

This roadmap is for anyone who needs to understand future developments on the NHS website. This might include policy and delivery teams at NHS England, digital leads at integrated care systems and suppliers of health technology to the NHS.  

Page contents

Objectives

Objectives for NHS.UK in 2023/24 are:

Run and maintain our existing live service, for example by:

  • regularly reviewing health advice and guidance content (text, video and images) to ensure it is clinically accurate   

  • updating and managing data about local health services    

Improve our existing live service, for example by:

  • transforming health advice and guidance   

  • improving navigation across key user journeys

Make our live service more efficient, for example by:

  • migrating our syndication APIs to the API catalogue   

  • reducing the complexity of our core technologies to speed up future delivery   

  • automating review moderation services

Support initiatives where nhs.uk is a key channel, for example by:

  • linking prescriptions information in the NHS App to Medicines content on nhs.uk   

  • transforming the contact us service so it is able to handle an increase in customer support requests as the number of digital transactions increases  

The NHS website is made up of several different groups of products. Each group has its own objectives for 2023/24.  

The following sections describe our current plans for each group of products and will include:

  • what has been delivered recently
  • what we’re working on now
  • what we plan to work on next

This is not an exhaustive list of everything we intend to do in 2023/24 and this page will be updated throughout the year.  

Health advice and guidance 

This group of products give users the information and advice they need to understand their health, and guidance on next steps they should take. It includes the Health A-Z, Medicines A-Z and Live Well parts of the website.  

 The objectives for this group of products are:  

  • maintain all existing health advice and guidance

  • improve key areas of existing health advice and guidance

  • retire content that no longer meets service proposition

  • support wider initiatives where nhs.uk is a key channel

 These are the specific things our teams are working on:

Recently completed
  • Developed content type for contraception - this will help speed up transformation of contraception topics across nhs.uk
  •  Transformed 30 existing topics to better meet user needs and content design standards
  •  Reviewed 150 existing topics to ensure they remain clinically accurate
Working on now
  • Designing a new hub to bring together key content for women. This is part of the Women’s Health Strategy for England
  • Designing new children’s and young people’s mental health content that will help users to understand these conditions, how to look after themselves and how to get help if they need it
  • Designing a new insulin hub that will support patients to make the right decision about which type to use, taking their medication safely and what to do if they have a side effect or medication error
  • Exploring how to link medicines content with individuals’ prescription information in the NHS App
  • Developing content types for long-term conditions, tests and screening - these will help to speed up transformation of these topics across nhs.uk
  • Designing new content on adenomyosis – a condition that affects 1 in 10 women aged 40 to 50 but which is missing from Health A-Z
  • Designing a new contraception hub – transforming 16 pages to better meet user needs and content design standards, and retiring 17 pages
  • Reviewing various topics to ensure they remain clinically accurate
  • Transforming 44 other topics to better meet user needs and content design standards. See the full list of topics in the list below
See the full list of topics we aim to transform

These are the next topics we aim to transform. If you have any feedback about these to help us improve them please contact us.

1. All contraception topics

2. All vaccination topics

3. Procedures and conditions

  • Botulinum toxin injections, such as Botox
  • Face and lip fillers (dermal fillers)
  • Breast enlargement (implants)
  • Breast reduction
  • Chemical peels
  • Hair transplant
  • Ear correction surgery, including ear pinning
  • Eyelid surgery
  • Liposuction
  • Tummy tuck (abdominoplasty)
  • Skin lightening
  • Facelift (rhytidectomy)
  • Permanent make up
  • Laser hair removal
  • Small bowel transplant
  • Tattoo removal
  • Labiaplasty (vulval surgery)
  • Nose reshaping (rhinoplasty)
  • Microdermabrasion
  • Tracheostomy
  • Pyoderma gangrenosum
  • Tongue tie
  • Intrauterine insemination (IUI)
  • Heart-lung transplant
  • Brugada syndrome
  • Surgical fat transfer
  • Granulomatosis with polyangitis
  • Asbestosis
  • Cyclical vomiting syndrome
  • Von Willebrand disease
  • Amyloidosis
  • Acid and chemical burns
  • Hereditary neuropathy
  • Laparoscopy
  • Hysteroscopy
  • Hip replacement
  • Weight loss surgery
  • Cystoscopy
  • Laser eye surgery and lens surgery
  • Colostomy
Working on next 
  • Developing content types for secondary care. This will help to speed up transformation of secondary care topics across nhs.uk
  • Adding 50 new medications to the Medicines A-Z. This will take the total to 300, covering 80% of the most prescribed and searched-for medicines
  • Transforming ADHD content to better meet user needs and content design standards

Accessing physical health services

This group of products helps users to find, choose and interact with local NHS services. It includes service finders, NHS Profile Manager, contact us, and ratings and reviews.

The objectives for this group of products are:

  1. Give users more relevant information about NHS services they can use.
  2. Signpost users directly into digital and transactional journeys beyond nhs.uk.
  3. Improve data quality for nhs.uk and partners.
  4. Improve operating efficiency (such as service desk, moderation, data collection).

These are the specific things our teams are working on:

Recently completed
  • Started collecting flu vaccination appointment booking links for some pharmacies so that these can be published on the NHS website and NHS App when people start getting vaccinated from September 2023
  • Improved how we display bank holiday opening times on Find a pharmacy making them more accurate and useful
  • Launched new versions of the A&E finder, urgent treatment centre finder and A-Z of service finders. These new finders have various design and accessibility improvements over the previous versions and are built on a modern infrastructure that makes them easier to support
  • Created dashboards for Integrated Care Boards to access insights from user reviews of health services in their areas
  • Decoupled the codebases for profiles and ratings and reviews so that these products can be worked on separately from one another
Working on now
  • Increasing awareness and take-up of pharmacy services other than prescriptions, such as the new pharmacy blood pressure check service. This supports some of the objectives in the Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care
  • Displaying appointment booking links for flu vaccinations to increase the number of booked appointments through the NHS website and NHS App
  • Understanding user needs, business needs and problems with Contact us so that we can improve this product
  • Understanding whether our hospital metrics and scorecards are meeting users’ needs
  •  Designing an alternative way of capturing and displaying star ratings of NHS services
  • Adding more automated checks for reviews as they are being submitted. This will help users to submit reviews that meet our moderation policies and reduce our reliance on human moderators
  • Trialling automated categorisation of reviews left by users so they can be analysed and used to support service improvement
  • Developing a new, simpler version of the Service search API
  • Automating the infrastructure provisioning of Profile manager
  • Reviewing and updating the service support models for the catchment APIs, Find your NHS number and contact us
  • Migrating the remaining service finders to improved infrastructure
Working on next 
  • Implementing the findings from our research into star ratings
  • Adding pharmacies in Wales to service search to support efficiencies and patient choice in Wales
  • Understanding whether being able to filter reviews of NHS services can help patients to choose the right service for them
  • Adding ratings and reviews functionality to talking therapies and sexual health services
  • Adding star ratings and Care Quality Commission (CQC) ratings to services in Find a GP to help people choose which GP practice to register with
  • Understanding how we can allow NHS service providers to demonstrate they have made a change to their service based on feedback from patient reviews
  • Reviewing product performance and streamlining technical design of Find your NHS number
  • Understanding how we better meet user needs to find accurate, up-to-date information about sexual health services available to them

Transactional services 

This group of transactional and interactive services help users to understand and manage their health. It includes self-assessment tools and the APIs and widgets in the NHS website developer portal.  

  The objectives for this group of products are:  

  • complete planned work on tools and medical device and transfer responsibility for these to business-as-usual operations

  • declassify the blood pressure and BMI self-assessment tools from medical device status

  • incorporate self-assessment tool into emerging user journeys where nhs.uk is a key channel

  • migrate NHS website syndication APIs from the NHS website developer portal to the API catalogue to remove the need for the developer portal and reduce running costs

These are the specific things our teams are working on:

Recently completed
  • Rebuilt the blood pressure self-assessment tool, outside of medical device classification and within NHS technical and service standards
  • Aligned components across the blood pressure, BMI and heart age tools to ensure a consistent user experience and to reduce time needed to make changes to these tools
Working on now
  • Rebuilding the blood pressure and BMI self-assessment tools, outside of medical device classification and within NHS technical and service standards
  • Migrating our widgets to the to the API catalogue
Working on next
  • Migrating the NHS website content API to the API catalogue
  • Migrating the ratings and reviews API to the API catalogue
  • Migrating the service search API to the API catalogue

Platform health 

This group of products affect all or large portions of nhs.uk, including how we publish content, how we gather feedback from users and how users navigate. It includes our content management system, feedback mechanisms, navigation patterns and internal search.  

  The objectives for this group of products are:  

  • reduce the complexity of core nhs.uk technologies (for example content management system, header and footer, banners) to make future delivery more efficient  

  • improve navigation on key user journeys

  • improve how we collect user feedback to support future user research

  These are the specific things our teams are working on:

Recently completed
  • Completed research into how we currently capture user feedback and how we can improve this and increase the demographic spread of users who provide feedback
  • Completed research into how users navigate from nhs.uk to their online health record
Working on now
  • Investigating how we can run A/B and multivariate tests with content on nhs.uk to support experiments in future
  • Investigating how we can optimise user journeys from nhs.uk to 111 Online
  • Understanding if improved signposting to the NHS App on nhs.uk will increase adoption of the NHS App
  • Improving the header and footer API so that updates can be made more efficiently and users given a more consistent experience
  • Improving how we gather feedback from users of the NHS website
Working on next
  • Improving the relevancy of internal search results to make it easier for users to find what they are looking for, in particular transactional services
  • Understanding how we can improve user journeys from nhs.uk to test results online
  • Reviewing the performance of the nhs.uk homepage and redesigning it to better meet user needs

Campaigns

This group of products includes public health campaign websites such as Better Health, Every Mind Matters, Start4Life, Healthier Families, Campaign Resource Centre and School Zone.  

The objectives for this group of products are:  

  • run and maintain 4 websites to support the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities' (OHID's) key behavioural change objectives and campaigns run by their marketing teams

  • run and maintain 2 business-to-business websites to distribute marketing materials on behalf of OHID’s partnerships team

  • provide sub-clinical support, advice and tools for users that align with health advice and guidance on nhs.uk

  These are the specific things our teams are working on:

Recently completed
  • Launched new Start4Life website with improvements to user experience and a more robust infrastructure
  • Supported media campaigns, such as Mental Health Awareness Week
  • Retired the old Campaign Resource Centre website and its reporting suite
  • Completed research into understanding and improving user journeys on Every Mind Matters
  • Launched a new weaning quiz – a simple, interactive way for users to engage with weaning content
  • Implemented SEO techniques to increase organic search visits to Every Mind Matters
  • Published a new baby basics hub to give users post-birth content and support
  • Improved content on adult obesity
Working on now
  • Supporting media campaigns such as Stoptober
  • Improving the information architecture of Every Mind Matters
  • Migrating School Zone content and retiring the existing School Zone website
  • Developing new interactive elements to support breastfeeding and weaning
  • Improving wellness and sleep content in the self-help ideas hub
  • Adding new content about toddlers and aligning with Department for Education strategies
Working on next
  • Supporting new media campaigns such as weaning
  • Reviewing user needs and performance of the How Are You? tool

Contact us

Last edited: 6 July 2023 4:26 pm