Requirements checklist
What an NHS GP website actually has to do.
A practice website must meet the public sector accessibility regulations and handle personal data lawfully. Everything else is NHS England guidance or supplier feature — and this page keeps those three things separate so you know what is negotiable.
Ryan Miller — Founder, Simpliy Primary Care — working in NHS primary care practice managementLast reviewed
Legal requirements
These are obligations, not preferences.
- Meet the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018, using WCAG 2.2 AA as the working standard.
- Publish and maintain an accessibility statement that reflects the site as it actually is.
- Handle personal data lawfully under UK GDPR — including anything collected by online forms — with a clear privacy notice.
- Publish the information required of the practice as a provider, such as complaints routes and how to give feedback.
NHS England guidance
Strongly expected, and used in benchmarking reviews.
- Make the top patient tasks obvious: appointments, prescriptions, test results, sick notes, registration and contacting the practice.
- Use plain English and avoid internal NHS jargon that patients do not use.
- Keep the homepage focused on doing, not on announcements.
- Make clinical and administrative contact routes findable within a couple of clicks.
- Keep opening hours, closures and extended access information current.
- Make the site work properly on a phone, because most patients arrive on one.
Supplier features
Not required by anyone — but they decide whether the site stays good.
- A content structure for policies, staff profiles and services that stays tidy as it grows.
- Managed monthly updates so the site does not drift out of date.
- Analytics and reporting so you can see which pages reduce calls.
- Hosting, SSL, backups and a tested restore process.
- NHS.uk domain support and correct redirects when addresses change.
- An annual accessibility and content review.
Questions