Updating your Website to include Engage Consult
Introduction
The final stage of launching Engage Consult requires you to make some changes to
your website so patients can use it.
There needs to be a graphic (sometimes referred to as a banner) on your home
page which patients click on to launch the system. This graphic needs to be visible
as soon as patients get to your homepage (on desktop computers, laptops, tablets,
and mobile phones). The graphic needs to link to your copy of Engage Consult.
Find the banner for Engage Consult here.
It’s difficult to stress how important it is for this banner to be somewhere that your
patients can see as soon as they get to your website (no matter what type of device
they use). It needs to stand out from the other content which is why it’s important to
use a banner (or a banner with text) rather than just text.
If your website has the ability to add a “Pop up window” when a patient visits, it’s a
great way to highlight Engage Consult.
Typically you’ll need to contact your web host a few days before you launch the
system with instructions as to what you want them to do. If you’re responsible for
creating and updating the content on your website then you can just do this on the
day.
You’ll need to provide your web host with:
- The graphic for the home page. We’ll have provided you with a range of graphics for your web site of differing sizes so you should be able to choose one that fits your site easily.
- The link for patients to access the system.
- Include text to explain how and what the service is e.g. “You can now contact
the surgery online to tell us about your non-emergency medical problem or
ask an admin question. You can ask for help anytime, anywhere within the UK,
and with any device. Using Online Consultations allows us to quickly and
safely decide on the best way to help you, your child, or an adult in your care. We usually respond within XXXX“
You may also need to tell them what size you want the graphic to be on your
website so that it doesn’t take up a disproportionate amount of space on
your home page. Typically if you can tell your web host where on your
homepage it needs to appear they’ll be able to resize the image for you. So
you might say something like, “underneath the image for XXX and only as
wide as that image.”
Getting the Link to send to your Web Host
To get the link for your web host you need to login at https://my.engage.gp using your ODS code and password.
Once logged in you need to follow the steps below:
Choose the Links option from the Engage Connect menu.
After you’ve selected the Links option you need to copy the unique link in your system.
The place where you need to copy your unique link from in your system is highlighted below:
When you’ve copied the unique link in your system:
1. paste it into an email (you can use the text in the section below to compose the email),
2. attach the graphic you’ve chosen to use on your site from those that were attached to the email that this document came in, to the email,
3. send the email to your web host asking them to update the homepage of your website.
The email might look something like this:
Subject:
Update to our website
Body:
Please can you update our website to show the attached graphic on the home page {in position xxx}. Can you link the graphic to this URL {the link you’ve got from Engage Connect as documented above} so when our patients click on it they’re taken to our online consultation system.
Below, or near to this. Please Include text to explain how and what Engage consult is e.g. “You can now contact the surgery online to tell us about your non-emergency medical problem or ask an admin question. You can ask for help anytime, anywhere within the UK, and with any device. Using Online Consultations allows us to quickly and safely decide on the best way to help you, your child, or an adult in your care. We usually respond within XXXX“
Can you please also make sure that this is shown on our mobile website as one of the first options our patients see.
If the website has the capability, please can you add a pop up window, to include the attached graphic and link to the above URL.