Which? patients want trusted information

Patients want a personalised health information website from a trusted source to help them make healthcare choices, according to the consumer body Which?

Which? research conducted in September – following publication of the government’s white paper ‘Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS’ – found that patients wanted a website that included tailored facts, patient feedback and statistics such as clinician success rates to help them make decisions about their care.

The consumer body said the research also revealed that patients would prefer the website to come from one trusted provider such as the NHS or a health OFSTED (the inspection body for schools and child care services).

Which? interviewed 40 people and ran four two-hour sessions with groups across England to find out what health information people wanted.

It concluded that in addition to a personalised website, people wanted to be provided with written information. The results have been fed into the government’s consultation on the white paper.

In a separate investigation, Which? asked three GPs to rate the quality of online health information provided by seven commonly used websites.

It reported that the Department of Health’s flagship website NHS Choices and EMIS’s website Patient.co.uk were ranked joint first.

The doctors spent four days on seven of the most-visited health sites during August; assessing BBC Health, NHS Choices, NHS Direct, MedlinePlus, NetDoctor, Patient UK and Steady Health.

Each site was visited six times and assessed on the information given for six medical conditions across five criteria.

These covered the depth of medical information on the condition, the accuracy of the information, how easy the information was to follow and understand, the tone of delivery and further links.

Both Patient UK and NHS Choices scored 88% out of a possible 100% compared with 64% for Newdoctor, 66% for MedlinePlus, 62% for BBC Health and 39% for NHS Direct.

Which? said NHS Choices and Patient UK consistently performed well and MedlinePlus, Netdoctor and BBC Health all put in “adequate performances”.

It said NHS Direct was the overall worst-performing site, but added that it was really a gateway to NHS Choices.

Which? said Steady Health did not receive a rating because it was a patient forum “thinly disguised as a general health website”.

The consumer body said the site was graded poorly for the level of accuracy of information on the site and said its GP investigators reported that its dependence on unverified information covered on its unmoderated patient forum and blogs were its biggest flaw.

Dr Tim Kenny from Patient.co.uk said patient.co.uk was regularly used by GPs during consultations to print off information for patients.

He added: “This is fantastic peer group endorsement for our team of medical experts who take a great deal of care in providing comprehensive, clear advice for patients on a huge range of health topics.”