The Northern Health and Social Care Trust (NHSCT) is geographically the largest health trust in Northern Ireland covering four local council areas – Antrim and Newtownabbey, Causeway Coast and Glens, Mid and East Antrim and Mid Ulster. The NHSCT is responsible for the delivery of safe and effective health and social care services to a resident population of approximately 470,000.
With a highly skilled and professional workforce, the NHSCT provides acute and community-based health and social care services across four localities which include approximately 300 facilities including day centres, health centres and residential homes.
The NHSCT have a vision to deliver excellent, integrated services in partnership with the community. Part of this vision was the reforming of its services which included the redesign and redevelopment of its website.
The Challenge
The NHSCT had a dated website which was not user friendly with users struggling to find the information they required. The website was required to have a comprehensive document library with approximately 5000 documents which needed to be organised and accessible, alongside an organised image library. With the objectives of the site having the facility to provide community and hospital information to service users, and the necessity to meet the requirements of the NI Information Commissioner’s Model Publication Scheme for public bodies, the NHSCT required a flexible website design that could meet stringent requirements.
The Solution
Working in partnership with the NHSCT the WebsiteNI team were able to create a professional, modern responsive website for the Trust. The website design represents the Trust’s corporate brand guidelines whilst offering the flexibility in design and layout required in to promote key messages at times of major incidents or crises.
The website is both visually engaging and information, with easy to use navigation to clearly identify the key services on offer by the Trust. In designing a clean, and clearly signposted website users can easily navigate the website to find the information they require in a limited number of clicks. The intuitive navigation provided throughout the website promotes repeat users as they can feel confident, they can find the information they need.
Throughout the website considerations were given for accessibility concerns for those with disabilities. Features include Browsealoud, high contrast toggles and increase/decrease font sizer. These features have been beautifully integrated with the website design.
As per the Trust’s requirements the website has a document library built in which holds approximately 5000 documents. These documents are organised and managed in a document library giving the Trust easy access to the documents required to complement their content throughout the website.
The new website was developed within the WordPress platform with an easy to use Content Management System to allow The Northern Health and Social Care Trust the flexibility to update content and images throughout the website.
To check out the brand new Northern Health and Social Care Trust website, visit northerntrust.hscni.net
