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NHS Choices Website Hits 11m Visitors: Are you registered yet?
The NHS Choices Website is now receiving over 11 million visits each month and is the most popular health website in the UK.
Pharmacy contractors in England can register to take ownership of their pharmacy profiles on NHS Choices and edit information such as opening hours, services offered and car parking arrangements. Pharmacies can also register for patient feedback comment administrator rights to ensure that they are alerted to any patient feedback left on the site about their pharmacy and to enable them to respond to this.
If you have not already done so, contact your PCT and request these rights. Note, both the CCA and AIMp have confirmed that they expect that their members will be co-ordinating registration with PCTs at Head Office rather than store level. Detailed guidance on the registration process can be found online at: www.psnc.org.uk/NHSChoices
On the NHS Choices site, it is possible for members of the public to search for the provider of a specific service, for example stop-smoking services or sexual health services. Currently the data on services provided comes from a number of sources including PCTs and organisations external to the NHS, for example information on allergy support services is being supplied by the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology. A current problem is that this information may not be comprehensive or up-to-date. The NHS Choices team are working to redevelop the user interface for searching services to provide a full list of services by location regardless of who/where a service is provided. To ensure that pharmacies are listed correctly in search results in future, it will be essential for pharmacies to ensure that their NHS Choices profile includes all of the NHS services that they provide. The new user interface is expected to be released during 2012.
Posted 16 February 2012