Websites & patient experience · Practice guide

Make sure website enquiries reach an available team

Illustrative situation

A contact form is only useful if somebody takes responsibility for the messages it sends. Agree who checks new enquiries, who covers absence and how the team notices a message waiting for attention. The website supplier can check delivery, but the practice needs to decide who handles the conversation afterwards. These are connected responsibilities, rather than one technical setting.

Read the guide Make your action list
Healthcare website and appointment calendar displayed on devices at an empty clinic reception.
Make the website useful for the people who use your practice.

What this means for your practice

Agree who receives enquiries, who covers absence and who follows up unanswered messages. Ask the supplier to check delivery separately from the practice’s routine for reading and responding to each request.

An example to discuss with your team

Remove the usual recipient in a test setup; verify the fallback process works.

Healthcare website design showing connected desktop and mobile service and enquiry layouts.
Make the service and next step clear on every screen.
Healthcare website accessibility illustrated by a focus outline, keyboard key, contrast samples and form.
Review keyboard access, contrast and understandable form fields.

A practical example

For example, a shared team inbox may suit the practice better than one colleague's personal mailbox, depending on its approved working arrangements. Ask the team to rehearse a holiday absence with fictional enquiries. Can another authorised colleague find the request and see whether it has been answered? The useful outcome is a dependable routine that fits reception's work and does not depend on one person remembering to forward messages before leave.

Make absence cover part of the practice's ordinary routine rather than a special website project. Ask who checks the shared queue at the start of the working day and how a colleague can see whether someone has already replied. Clear responsibility prevents duplicate answers as well as missed ones.

Make this improvement work

Identify the receiving role and backup for each enquiry route, then agree how someone acknowledges responsibility. Delivery to a shared inbox is an earlier step than a colleague accepting the next action. Ask the supplier to test the technical fallback, and ask the practice to rehearse the human cover routine separately. Include leave, a departed employee and an unclear category. Keep the list of destinations owned and reviewed when teams change. Inspect older unanswered messages as well as newly delivered ones. The aim is a reliable response process that does not depend on one person informally forwarding work from a mailbox only they remember to check.

How to check the result

Measure requests waiting without a named owner.

Turn reading into a next step

Your action checklist

Work through these checks with your team or supplier. Tick the ones you have resolved and leave unknowns open.

Checks to discuss

Record what you know, what is still missing and the answer you need from your team or supplier.

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Further reading

These sources provide background for the topic. The practice examples and checklist are illustrative planning suggestions from Kay & Co.

Related guides

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