Getting your GP website back online: a practical guide

If your practice website has gone down, you probably have enough to do without finding a new supplier, chasing domain access and rewriting pages from scratch.

We've put this practical guide together to help you get started. It covers what patients need first, how we can recover older website content, and who to contact if your practice is owed money following the Silicon Practice disruption.

Fill in our emergency website request form if you would like a hand. You don't need to have everything ready — send us your practice details and we'll work through the rest with you.

First, make sure patients know how to reach you

Start with the basics: your telephone number, opening hours, address and current arrangements for appointments and prescriptions. Check that staff, telephone messages and patient notices all give the same information.

An NHS England spokesperson, quoted by ITV News on 28 October, said:

“If your GP practice website is unavailable and you need help, you should contact your practice by phone or in person as usual.”

Check each online service separately. Your website, consultation platform and prescription service may have been affected in different ways. Only send patients to links your practice has checked are working.

Your ICB digital or GP IT team can help with local arrangements. West and North London ICB's letter to practices is a useful example of the steps being recommended: gather your content, check domain ownership, plan the move and keep patients informed.

How we can help get your practice back online

Our first job is to get useful, accurate practice information in front of patients again. An interim site can carry your contact details, opening hours, service information, notices and links to your working online services while we help with the fuller website.

We've launched interim sites on the same day once the information, approval and access needed were in place. During our first 48-hour emergency response, we restored 30 practice websites, supporting practices with more than 200,000 registered patients between them.

We'll tell you what is realistic for your practice before we start. Same-day launch depends on the information available, your approval, our capacity and domain arrangements. The 48-hour setup advertised with our managed service is for the basic interim site; the full website follows.

We are working with administrators, ICB teams, practices and PCNs to help get websites online and work through domain and content recovery. Sometimes another organisation needs to release access or update a record. When that happens, we'll explain what we're waiting for and what we can do in the meantime.

Can you recover our old website? Start with the Wayback Machine

Where a usable archive exists, we can rebuild your public website from its last known archived state. This can save your team a great deal of rewriting.

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine keeps snapshots of many public websites. We can look for the most recent usable capture of your practice site, recover available page content and use it as a starting point for the replacement.

You can take a look yourself:

1. Open the Wayback Machine and enter your old website address.
2. Choose a capture from before the disruption.
3. Look through the pages you need, including appointments, prescriptions and contact information.
4. Send us the archive link and let us know what has changed since that date.

A snapshot might be weeks or months old. Some pages, downloads or images may be missing, so we check what is available and ask your practice to review it before launch. We use content your practice owns or has permission to reuse, and refresh anything that no longer reflects how you work.

The archive helps us recover public website content. It cannot restore FootFall, private patient records, submissions or the systems behind online forms. The Internet Archive explains these limits in its Wayback Machine help guide.

What we'll need from you

A little information helps us move quickly:

• Your practice name, ODS code, website address and a main contact.
• Telephone numbers, opening hours and details of any branches.
• Your current appointment and prescription arrangements.
• Links to working services, such as your existing consultation provider.
• Any saved pages, documents or archive links you have.
• Who manages your domain, if you know.

If something is missing, don't worry. Tell us what you have and we'll help identify the gaps. Please don't put passwords or patient information in the request form.

Ask us for emergency website support

What happens to our domain name?

If your practice controls its current domain, we can help arrange the changes needed to point it to the replacement site. If access is held elsewhere, we'll help work through recovery with the relevant parties.

A temporary address can give patients somewhere to find information while that is being resolved. We can also discuss an NHS.uk address where appropriate — our NHS.uk domain guide explains the process.

Before launch, a nominated member of your team checks the content and service links. Once everything is approved, we help you confirm the address patients should use.

Our response so far

Our team has worked around the clock alongside busy practice teams. Here is how the response developed.

1. 27 October

   emergency requests and practical support

   We were receiving emergency website requests from affected practices and contacting primary care teams about urgent website support. The focus was on getting essential patient information online and identifying what each practice needed.

2. 28 October

   building and reviewing replacement sites

   We worked with practices on their website content, service links, previews and access arrangements. Practice teams helped us check the information needed for their interim sites.

3. 29 October

   30 websites restored in 48 hours

   We announced the first 30 restored practice websites, serving a combined registered population of more than 200,000. TheBusinessDesk reported on the response.

4. 30 October

   recovery work featured by Digital Health

   Digital Health included our work in its coverage of the disruption and NHS England's advice to practices.
5. 31 October

   sharing a practical guide

   We published this guide to bring the recovery steps, support options and useful links into one place. Work continues with practices on domain access, content checks and their full websites.

The 30-site figure describes our initial response. It is not a count of recovered clinical systems, and the patient figure refers to the populations those practices serve.

Clear prices, so you know where you stand

An unexpected website problem is an unexpected cost too. We want practices to have a straightforward choice.

The temporary option gives you some breathing space. You can choose to move to the full managed service later. We'll explain the scope and next steps before you commit.

View our pricing or choose an option in the emergency request form.

Already paid Silicon Practice? Contact the administrator

If your practice paid for services it has not received, or believes it is owed a refund or another amount, contact the administrator to ask about registering the practice's creditor claim.

Schappit Ltd, the company behind Silicon Practice, is company number 09084187. The official appointment notice in The Gazette names Richard Paul Rendle of Rendle & Co as administrator, appointed on 16 October 2026.

The notice gives these contacts:

• Daniel Holden: daniel.holden@rprendle.com
• General enquiries: info@rprendle.com
• Telephone: 01564 783777

Explain that your practice believes it is a creditor of Schappit Ltd. Have your contract, invoices, payment evidence, relevant correspondence and the amount you believe is owed ready. Ask the administrator to confirm that your details are recorded, how to submit a proof of debt, and any deadline or creditor updates you should know about.

The administrator will assess claims. Registering a claim does not guarantee repayment, and an advance payment does not automatically establish the amount recoverable. Your accountant can help you work through your practice's position if needed.

GOV.UK's guidance for creditors directs creditors to the insolvency practitioner handling a company administration. Send claim documents to the administrator, rather than through our website support form.

What Silicon Practice said in its update

In its 29 October email to practices, Silicon Practice said services had been restricted:

“to preserve and protect data and for reasons of patient safety.”

It said it anticipated full restoration by 5pm on Friday 30 October and was considering reduced service in the meantime. That was the expectation given in that email. Check directly which services are available to your practice now before changing patient instructions.

Keep a copy of the correspondence. It may be useful both for your recovery planning and for any enquiry to the administrator.

Keep clinical information on a separate recovery track

A replacement website is one part of getting things working again. If consultations or patient information were held in an affected system, involve your clinical lead, ICB digital team and data protection officer.

The Register reported on NHS England's communication, including concerns about the:

“availability, integrity, confidentiality or recoverability of personal data”

Its report describes priorities around preserving historic information, dealing with outstanding online consultations and keeping alternative contact routes open. Your practice team should agree how those tasks will be handled alongside the website work.

A team that understands general practice

Everyone in our team has worked in GP practices. Some of us still work within or alongside primary care as well as at Simpliy. We know what an extra job like this means when the phones are busy and the day is already full.

You can expect us to explain the options, be clear about costs and keep you involved. We'll ask your team to approve the content, help with the practical details and give you a named route for support.

We're grateful to the practice managers, PCNs and other colleagues who have worked with us, both during this disruption and on our wider website projects.

A few words from our wider website work

“Simpliy has developed and manages the majority of websites across the 18 practices within our PCN, delivering an excellent service.”

— Tracey Norton, East Staffordshire PCN · LinkedIn

“We are exceptionally happy with the end result.”

— Zoe Dearsley, Tutbury Health Centre · Trustpilot, March 2024

See examples of our work with practices and PCNs.

A few questions we are often asked

Do we need all our content ready before contacting you?

No. Start with your practice details and website address. We can look at saved content and available archives, then work through what still needs checking.

Can you restore everything from the Wayback Machine?

We can rebuild from the latest usable archived pages where they exist. The archive may be incomplete or out of date, so we will explain what can be recovered. It does not restore private data or online consultation systems.

Can our PCN or ICB coordinate several practices?

Yes. Tell us which practices need help and who is coordinating the work. Each practice will still need to confirm its content, contact details and approval arrangements.

What if our original website comes back?

Check the site and its links, confirm any outstanding request arrangements, and discuss the next steps with your ICB and suppliers. Make sure patients know which address and contact routes to use.

Where can we read about Simpliy's response?

Our work has been featured in TheBusinessDesk and Digital Health. Our original response update gives more detail about the first 48 hours.

Let's get the essentials sorted

Whether you need a temporary site, help finding your old content or someone to talk through the options, we're happy to help.

Fill in our emergency website request form

You can also email hello@simpliyprimarycare.co.uk or call 01332 529529.

Tell us what has happened at your practice. We'll take it from there, one step at a time.