Health content on GOV.UK: highlights from month 1
All 24 ministerial departments are now live on GOV.UK along with No 10 and the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office (DPM), HMRC and 28 agencies and other public bodies. The DH website moved to GOV.UK on Tuesday 26 March 2013 (https://www.gov.uk/dh).
This report presents some statistical highlights from our full first month on GOV.UK (Monday 1 April to Tuesday 30 April).
Homepages
The DH homepage on GOV.UK received more than 344,000 views in the first month. This is more than any other department or agency. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) was the 2nd most visited homepage with about 328,000 views.
Public Health England received about 80,000 views to its homepage. The Advisory Committee for Clinical Excellence Awards received about 8,000 views.
Topics
There are 47 topics across GOV.UK that represent the work of government. Health accounts for 3 of the top 5 most viewed topics across government.
Topic / Views1 / Public Health / 19,061
2 / National Health Service / 18,777
3 / Planning and Building / 15,889
4 / Social Care / 14,611
5 / Housing / 9,747
Policies
The most viewed policy across the whole of GOV.UK was a supporting page about universal credit. The DH obesity and nutrition policy was the 2nd most viewed. Six of the 18 health policies appear in the top 20 most viewed, out of 223 in total.
Policy / Views / Organisation1 / Simplifying the welfare system and making work pay – Introducing universal credit / 51,048 / DWP
2 / Reducing obesity and improving diet / 31,423 / DH
3 / Simplifying the welfare system and making work pay – Introducing personal independence payment / 20,671 / DWP
4 / Increasing the use of low carbon technologies / 18,930 / DECC & DfT
5 / Providing effective building regulations so that new and altered buildings are safe, accessible and efficient / 16,361 / DCLG & Building Regulations Advisory Committee
Other health policies in the top 20:
Policies / Views13 / Reducing drugs misuse and dependence / 11,322 / DH, Home Office
15 / Improving the quality of life for people with long term conditions / 9,717 / DH
16 / Improving care for people with dementia / 9,584 / DH
17 / Giving all children a healthy start in life / 9,366 / DH
20 / Making mental health services more effective and accessible / 7,247 / DH
News and press releases
The DH news story from 11 March on new NHS charges was the 5th most viewed news story across government in April.
News story or press release / Views / Organisation1 / Passport renewal: make sure you apply for a passport early to beat the summer rush / 44,624 / Identity and Passport Service & Home Office
2 / The new home on the web for the Identity and Passport Service / 19,055 / Identity and Passport Service
3 / Driving test candidates warned on vehicle recalls / 14,112 / Driving Standards Agency
4 / Filtering of old and minor convictions and cautions / 11,466 / Disclosure and barring service
5 / NHS charges from April 2013 announced / 11,396 / DH
Other health-related announcements that appeared in the top 50 most viewed were:
News story or press release / Views / Organisation10 / Government publishes initial response to the Mid Staffordshire NHS Public Inquiry Report (news story) / 11,317 / DH
11 / Putting Patients First: government publishes response to Francis Report (press release) / 9,113 / DH
16 / NHS-funded nursing care rates increased for 2013 (news story) / 5,341 / DH
25 / Family Nurse Partnership programme to be extended (news story) / 4,857 / DH
36 / Measles at highest level for 18 years (news story) / 4,387 / PHE
37 / National MMR vaccination catch-up programme announced in response to increase in measles cases (press release) / 4,371 / PHE
39 / Government launches care comparison website (news story) / 4,267 / DH
42 / Health Secretary to strengthen patient privacy on confidential data use (press release) / 4,121 / DH
Publications
Out of the top 10 most viewed publications across government, 5 were from DH. The most viewed publication page on GOV.UK was for the factsheets produced to explain the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
The html publication explaining the health and care system was the 5th most viewed publication, with about half as many views.
Publication / Views / Organisation1 / Health and Social Care Act 2012 factsheets / 31,278 / DH
2 / Legalisation application form / 25,199 / FCO
3 / DBS check: eligible positions guidance / 17,328 / Disclosure and barring service
4 / Knowledge of language and life in the UK for settlement and naturalisation: statement of intent / 17,238 / UK Border Agency & Home Office
5 / The health and care system explained / 16,059 / DH
6 / National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS Funded Nursing Care / 14,108 / DH
7 / The NHS Constitution for England / 11,326 / DH
8 / Government’s initial response to the Mid Staffs Inquiry / 11,326 / DH
9 / National Planning Policy Framework / 9,693 / DCLG
10 / DBS continuation sheet / 9,607 / Disclosure and Barring Service
Search
More than 57% of people arrived on GOV.UK via search (mostly Google) with the majority landing on the page they searched for. When people can’t find what they are looking for they use the GOV.UK search.
The Government Digital Service has a specialist team working on improving the site search and it’s the number one priority for GOV.UK as a whole. DH is one of two departments taking part in a pilot to improve our search results.
We know there are some searches that are not currently bringing back the best results. We are taking the following actions:
1. Improving the search engine optimisation (SEO) for these pages
2. Reviewing whether some content that has been archived should instead be migrated to GOV.UK
3. Identifying what the best results should be so GDS can improve their search algorithms
This table shows the top internal search terms that we are focusing our efforts on. The higher the search refinement the less likely it is that people are landing on the right content first time.
Search terms / Number of searches / Search refinement (%)1 / green book / 839 / 10
2 / ehic / 458 / 20
3 / francis report / 440 / 16
4 / no secrets / 435 / 46
5 / consent / 393 / 54
6 / mental health / 356 / 26
7 / birth to five / 309 / 36
8 / diabetes / 302 / 33
9 / national service framework / 207 / 68
10 / confidentiality / 205 / 38
Overall visits and trends on GOV.UK Inside Government
· There were more than 12,695,000 visits to the Inside government section of GOV.UK in the month of April
· 15.5% of all visits to GOV.UK were via a mobile phone or tablet computer
· For DH, traffic from mobile devices was less, at 11.5%, probably due to the fact that our content is predominantly PDF publications
Summary
Health content has continued to receive high volumes of traffic after launch, with DH publications receiving considerably more views than any other department or agency.
There is more work to do to ensure all the content that should be on GOV.UK is migrated and that content that was migrated is all as easy to find and of as high a quality as possible.
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