News

We’re thrilled to announce that the new Pathology & Imaging microsite for University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust has officially gone live! This marks an exciting step forward for the South West Peninsula’s diagnostic networks, allowing streamlined access to vital information and resources, all housed within a trusted and secure platform.

In response to NHS England's initiative to establish 28 pathology networks across the UK, the Peninsula Pathology Network was formed to drive transformation in diagnostic services. Working closely with University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, our team at VerseOne developed a microsite that sits seamlessly within the hospitals existing installation on the VerseOne CMS. This new microsite offers a platform tailored to the specific needs of the Pathology & Imaging network, providing scope for further expansion as services grow.

By hosting the new microsite on the existing installation, University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust can be sure that their new microsite is securely hosted on Microsoft Azure. It also ensures employees from other areas of the business are restricted from accessing or changing content on the new Pathology & Imaging site through the use of secure permission controls, and admins can provide support for the new site from within an existing platform that they know and love.

One of the most exciting aspects of this integration is the streamlined content management. By accessing one universal platform, staff can create and publish content across multiple sites with ease, ensuring a smooth and consistent user experience. With both the main University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust site and the new microsite on the same VerseOne CMS, tried and tested processes mean that everything from content updates to user access remains reliable and secure.

To see the new website for yourself, check out the Peninsula Diagnostics NHS site and explore this dedicated space for pathology and imaging resources across the South West Peninsula.

We look forward to seeing this new site evolve and continue supporting University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust in delivering exceptional healthcare.

 

 

Read Unveiling the new Pathology & Imaging microsite for University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust…

On the 27th of September, VerseOne hosted a Macmillan Coffee Morning, and the event was a heartwarming success! Our office came together to enjoy a break from the usual workday, indulge in delicious homemade and shop bought treats, and raise money for a wonderful cause.

From 11 am, we downed tools for 45 minutes to connect with colleagues we might not usually get the chance to chat with. It was a perfect opportunity to pause, take time for ourselves, and share a moment of connection over coffee and cake. With a wide variety of goodies on offer, the office was filled with chatter, laughter, and, of course, a bit of friendly baking rivalry. Rene brought in a carrot cake, Katy made Kinder Bueno brownies and white chocolate cookies, and Kerry’s daughter added a creative touch with her Biscoff cupcakes.

We didn’t just stop at enjoying the treats—we made it competitive too! A highlight of the morning was our “VerseOne Star Baker” competition. After much deliberation (and tasting!), Rene's carrot cake took home the prize, along with a coveted trophy.

In total, we raised an impressive £184.71, and in the true VerseOne spirit of giving back, the company generously matched this amount, bringing our donation total to £369. All of this goes to Macmillan Cancer Support, a charity dedicated to providing physical, emotional, and financial support to people living with cancer.

Haydn summed up the day perfectly, saying:

 It was fantastic to catch up with colleagues, enjoy some delicious cakes, and most importantly, raise money for such a great cause. A big thank you to everyone who contributed and made the Macmillan Coffee Morning a success!

Macmillan Coffee Mornings are about more than just cake. They are vital for raising funds that help support the millions of people affected by cancer in the UK. For many, Macmillan is a lifeline, offering critical services, advice, and care.

At VerseOne, we believe in doing good. Our commitment to improving the lives of those who rely on social housing and the NHS naturally extends to causes like this, where we can give back to our community. We’re proud to support Macmillan and their incredible work, and we look forward to more opportunities to come together and make a difference.

Thank you to everyone who contributed and made the day a success!

Read Macmillan Coffee Morning at VerseOne: Cakes, colleagues, and a cause…

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLAM) have been a VerseOne customer since early 2021. At VerseOne, we constantly work with our customers to help drive process improvements, deliver efficiencies, and empower NHS Trusts to provide accessible online experiences for their users.

Our most recent project with SLAM involved implementing the Accessible Document Converter module as part of their VerseOne Content Management System (CMS) installation. As part of this project the SLAM installation required an upgrade, once that was successfully completed the ADC module was enabled.

 

Making the inaccessible, accessible

Much like NHS Trusts across the UK, SLAM have a wide range of content – such as policy documents, leaflets and informational materials – that they host online in the form of PDFs. Whether these are plain but lengthy word document style pieces, or heavily designed infographics featuring pictures and graphs, PDF documents are inaccessible by design. They can’t be read by screen readers, and with almost 2 million people living with visual impairments across the UK, a significant portion of SLAMs online content is inaccessible to many of their users.

VerseOne’s Accessible Documents Creator solves this problem by automatically reading Word and PDF documents, and converting them into clean, Accessible HTML pages — complete with Accessibility Checker and suggested corrections, inpage navigation indices, and links to the original document.

The content team at SLAM can simply upload their documents, tick the Conversion option and be confident that everyone, of all abilities, can access this critical information — and with minimal effort.

 

Looking forward to an accessible future

We’re proud to have worked with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to enhance their current CMS installation, and enable the effortless conversion of accessible content to enhance the user experience of their patients.

If you’d like to understand how your Trust could benefit from providing accessible content at scale, get in touch with the VerseOne team today.

Read Enabling accessible content for South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust…

 

On 9 January 2024, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on birth trauma in the UK set up an inquiry to investigate the reality of maternity services across the country, focusing on the reasons for traumatic births. This inquiry involved focus groups, interviews with grieving and trauma-stricken patients, and the over-worked and highly pressured staff who live this trauma day in and day out. The desired output? The development of policy recommendations to reduce the rate of birth trauma and ensure a fair experience for all regardless of race, religion, location or wealth.  

The Birth Trauma Inquiry has now been concluded and it contains some harrowing stories of heartbreak, loss, and trauma. The outcome from the inquiry is an 80-page report that outlines key changes needed in the sector to provide a fair and accessible experience for all prospective parents no matter where they live, covering the entire journey from pregnancy through to parenthood. To help you digest the inquiry report, we’ve highlighted seven key conclusions and matched them to seven digital solutions that can help maternity services meet these recommendations. 

 

1. Recruit, train and retain more midwives to ensure safe levels of staffing in maternity services. 

This training will also include mandatory training on trauma-informed care and will extend to obstetricians and anaesthetists. Under current practices, recruiting and training costs an NHS Trust £12,000 per nurse. This cost combined with the time taken to recruit, onboard and train staff puts the NHS recruitment crisis in a whole new light. Focusing on retaining and training midwives in order to increase the number of staff on shift at any one time will reduce the strain on maternity services and put more staff at the helm when dealing with traumatic birthing scenarios. 
 

The solution: An enhanced employee experience that fosters continuous improvement, staff engagement and boosts staff retention. Through the use of efficient and effective staff onboarding, both clinical and non-clinical employees feel engaged and involved right from the beginning of their employment and staff retention increases. 

2. Commit to tackling inequalities in maternity care among ethnic minorities, particularly Black and Asian women.  

Many reports over the years, including investigations from the charity Birthrights, have highlighted racial injustice for women under maternity care. For example, black woman are four times more likely than white women to die during childbirth, and Asian women are twice as likely. Far too often, women have reported feeling unsafe, being denied pain relief, and faced racial stereotyping about their pain tolerance. This stems from stereotyping and a lack of cultural competence and negatively impacts a person’s ability to speak up about the care they’re receiving. 

The solution: Make content and services accessible to all, and available in any language to minimise opportunities for racial discrimination, making all prospective parents feel at ease during their pregnancy journey. This can be facilitated through an easy-to-access maternity portal that translates content and enables the patient to raise complaints or give feedback about the service they’re receiving. 

3. Training and procedure documents need to be more accessible for staff to reduce the amount of injuries in child birth. 

Even in a digitally adopted world, clinicians often don’t have easy access to a computer when on the ward. This means the use of procedure documents and guidelines are often time consuming or hard to access, especially in times of need such as during traumatic birth situations. 

The solution: An easy-to-access staff intranet that provides employees with the latest policy and procedure documents anywhere, anytime and on any device. Put the power back into employees’ hands and adhere to compliance and regulations by making documents more accessible to staff. A great staff intranet also encourages community and learning, helps share general news and education like announcements and blogs, and provides staff with one source of the truth and a hub of conversation and information – all facilitated through their mobile phone. 

4. Link to mental health services and enable people to have standardised post birth services like birth reflections and 6-week check-ins. 

After traumatic births, parents are offered a birth reflection to discuss their thoughts and feedback around the service they received and the impact the traumatic birth has had in understanding what went wrong. These sessions can often feel rushed and both clinical staff and the parents themselves either do not feel satisfied with the discussion that took place, or are under-prepared for the conversation itself.  

The solution: Providing the ability for parents to complete birth reflections and check-in information in their own time prior to their appointment. This would enable parents to take their time to think about their response, and ensure they’ve covered everything they need to. It would also ensure appointments are used to discuss the information as opposed to gathering it, helping make the sessions more efficient. This could be facilitated through online forms, accessed through a personalised maternity portal that only they have access to. 

5. Information and permissions need to be agreed prior to labour to eliminate women having to fill in forms in the middle of labour. 

In worst case scenarios, consent forms are required for clinical staff to administer drugs or undertake procedures such as epidurals and c-sections. Often, these forms are completed by the patient on paper, in high stress environments and during a time where cognitive understanding of the possible risks and complications of these forms is impaired. 

The solution: Ensure all possible forms required for various situations and circumstances that could arise during labour are already signed via a digital portal ahead of time. This gives clinical staff easy access to consent forms and policies to save administration time during stressful situations, and also alleviates the need for women to sign these types of consent forms when possibly cognitively impaired. 

6. Ensure better education for women on birth choices. All NHS Trusts should offer antenatal classes, risks should be discussed during both antenatal classes and the 34-week check. 

Antenatal classes are the most common form of education for prospective parents across the UK. However, these are paid for classes, delivered by non-medically trained staff from a variety of third-party organisations. This format of paid-for education often means that those who cannot afford the classes miss out on the same experiences and education as those who can. This has created a clear divide across geographic locations and ethnicities who are being unfairly affected by a lack of accessible education. 

The solution: A maternity portal that provides access to free and paid for NHS antenatal classes and clinically-led education to help inform prospective parents. Content can be consumed in their own time via any device, and nobody is excluded based on ability to pay. This also generates income for the maternity service based off classes that are paid for and helps reinvest that income to provide free support and education to ensure equality in the services provided. 

7. Provide support for fathers and ensure nominated birth partners are continuously informed and updated during labour and post-delivery. 

Often, family members, fathers and birth partners are not as involved in the pre-delivery education, with antenatal classes and support primarily being offered to the mother during the pregnancy journey. This recommendation would ensure that everyone is informed and educated to the same level, which can help provide further support to the prospective parents at all stages of their experience. 

The solution: Enable fathers, birth partners, friends and family access to a maternity portal that enables communication both pre and post-delivery, enabling them to provide feedback on the service they received, and keep up to date and informed throughout the entire pregnancy journey. This portal can be accessed 24/7, on any device and allows the user to educate themselves in their own time. 

 

Delivering better outcomes through digital 

Digital tools and technologies have the potential to alleviate the strain on maternity staff whilst still delivering a higher quality service to expectant mothers, birth partners, friends and family. Whether this starts from recruitment and focuses on improving staff retention to ensure better staffing rates, or alleviates the strain of education and ensures fair and equitable access to antenatal classes for all - digital solutions have the power to elevate your maternity service. 

Although the inquiry has made many recommendations and driven a major call for change across the country, one conclusion stands clear. The UK’s maternity sector is over-worked and under resourced and change needs to happen to ensure a fair service is offered to all prospective parents across the UK without prejudice. Technology has the power to make this happen, and make it happen at scale, without causing a major strain on the already tight resources of the NHS. 

To understand more about how digital solutions could enhance the offering of your maternity service, get in touch with the team today or check out our webinar aimed at Maternity services to help them discover how other NHS Trusts are using digital solutions to enhance the patient experience. 
 

Get in touch

 

Read Birth Trauma Inquiry: Improving maternity services using digital …

With 24% of the UK population being registered as living with a disability, keeping accessibility front of mind when creating online content or building a websites user journey is imperative to providing fair and equal access to your services.

To help NHS Trusts implement tools and functionality that ensure accessible digital experiences for all, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) have created the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (also known as WCAG). These are a set of internationally-recognised recommendations for improving web accessibility, that provide different levels of compliance based on a set of criteria.

The digital landscape offers a variety of tools that ensure compliance with these guidelines, and for a lot of NHS Trust, making online and digital experiences more accessible is easier than you think. In this infographic we share statistics around the top accessibility testing failures across websites in the UK, as well as solutions to help overcome non-compliance with the WCAG guidelines.

Click here to access the infographic

Or click here to access an accessible HTML version.

Read Infographic: Making your website accessible for all…

Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust (BWC) is a valued and celebrated VerseOne customer. So we’re delighted to announce that we’ve delivered another exciting project to help them promote their service offering whilst maintaining their brand identity and increasing the availability of content they can offer.

This project saw us create and deliver BWC’s Operation Delivery Network (ODN) microsite. The ODN required their own website, which needed to be built on the existing BWC VerseOne CMS installation to enable ease of use for staff and ensure brand consistency. The wider benefit of this is that the ODN team will be able to use the modules that are already within the BWC installation, allowing them to develop the site as they further develop their content.

The microsite supports six distinct networks, each distinguished by a vibrant colour palette:

• Children and Young People's Cancer
• Congenital Heart Disease
• Surgery in Children
• Paediatric Critical Care
• Paediatric Palliative Care
• Perinatal

It’s also been built with accessibility in mind, to ensure ease of use for the Trusts service users, and encapsulates the creative flair and unique features that we’ve previously worked with BWC to deliver for their wider portfolio of websites.

It’s been a pleasure to work with such a valued and creative customer on this project, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for our relationship with the Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.

To view the website, simply click here!

 

Thank you so much for all your work on this – much appreciated. I’ve emailed the ODN team and they’re very happy.

Catherine Connolly, Digital Communications Specialist, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust

Read Empowering healthcare: another exciting project with Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust…

 

A great brand sets you apart from the competition. It showcases your values, personality, skillset and can help your business exponentially. An affective brand identity makes a memorable impression, gains trust with your customers, and gives them the confidence to know exactly what they are likely to expect from your organisation or services.

Ultimately, a powerful brand ensures customer retention. With 60% of consumers stating they’d prioritise their preferred brand even if it’s pricier, an effective brand not only helps you keep your customers for longer, but you can entice more customers to shop with you too.

A logo is important within any brand, but it's just the start. Outstanding brands combine great typography, imagery, tone of voice to its colours, to name just a few. If you’re new to the world of branding or want to help your organisation grow its brand, this blog post is here to help you discover how you can create a strong identity. We’ll cover things like typography, imagery to colours, but at its core branding is all about consistency, so that’s where we are going to start.

 

1. Brand consistency

Brand consistency is the powerhouse of visual identity and design. If your brand is consistent across your website, printed marketing material, social media profiles and mobile user experience then this goes a long way.

Consistency is key to establishing a recognisable brand. As documented by Mailchimp:

“Brand consistency means ensuring that the way you present your company—and what it stands for—remains the same across all your marketing channels, unifying the image and message your customers and potential customers see.”

If potential customers see the same values, proposition and design during various interactions across lots of different channels and devices, this adds to your brands trustworthiness and elevates your brands credibility. Consistency should not be overlooked, which is why brand guidelines are crucial within any organisation.

A set of Brand Guidelines document the brand’s typography, imagery, tone of voice, and colour usage that others in the organisation need to follow. However, the bigger an organisation gets the harder it can be to retain the brand, with studies showing that only 30% of brands have guidelines that are well-known and accessible to the entire organisation. Ensuring all areas of the organisation are on the same page helps secure consistency, which makes having these documents even more important. With that being said, what are the key aspects to any strong brand design?

 

2. Typography

You want to choose a typeface that represents your brand identity. If your brand is friendly and outgoing, then you could choose more of a ‘friendly’ typeface (think curved edges and playful touches). However, if your brand is more serious and corporate, then a more traditional typeface might be worthwhile. For example, we work with a lot of NHS Trusts who need to maintain a professional and accessible brand identity, so the typeface most NHS Trusts opt for is Frutiger.

“Frutiger is a contemporary and flexible sans serif font, which was designed to be clear and easy to read at a distance and in small sizes. It still achieves this objective and has become recognised as the clean, simple typeface which people associate with the NHS.”

Looking at Slack’s media kit, their use of typography corresponds to their brand values: ‘empathetic, playfulness and thriving’ to name a few. Choosing a typeface for your brand requires patience and trial and error, but it makes a huge difference to your brand identity.

 

3. Imagery

Much like typography, the imagery you choose should also represent your brand and the personality you want to convey. Is your brand more of a human-lead organisation? Do you target the younger generation, or do you want to focus more on cutting edge technology within your imagery?

For example, if you look at Innocent Drinks, their imagery is playful, cartoony and friendly. This is represented by their fun illustrations (they have a nice website too!) and clearly showcases their brand position - it works effectively.

Much like the written word, images are also a form of communication. What is the personality of your brand? How would you describe your business in a sentence? This can form your use and style of imagery.

 

4. Tone of voice

Tone of voice can sometimes be left behind when it comes to creating a strong brand identity. It’s not as ‘concrete’ as things like your brand colours or imagery for example, but tone of voice sets the bar for the way in which your brand will be interpreted.

Words form the content of your website. They can be used to persuade potential customers, describe your offering, showcase your services and portray your values. They also make up your marketing material, like assets, emails and social media posts - so setting parameters to define your tone of voice is pretty important. Like most of these pointers, do you want to communicate a friendly or corporate vibe?

This links back to your core values as an organisation. If you want more insight into tone of voice, this article by SEMRush is a good quality read.

 

5. Colours

Great brands minimise their use of colours. This is evident by some of the biggest and most recognisable brands across the globe like Cola-Cola, Mastercard or IKEA for example. Brand colours are mighty, and are one of the most important elements of visual identity and design. Choose correctly and wisely, and more people will recognise your brand amongst the crowd. According to Looka:

“A well-developed brand should make your audience feel something when they see you. Since most colours already have emotions tied to them, you can use them to connect your company to specific moods or feelings.”

To choose your branding colours, consider the different colour meanings, and how it sits within your industry or competitors. For example, your competitors may use blue as their core colour, so it would be wise to choose a different colour to stand out from the crowd. Or if you’re in the health care industry, you probably want to stay away from red, which is associated with danger.

It’s also important to keep accessibility in mind. This can be achieved by using dark, mid and light colours that provide a contrast. We recommend you choose a maximum of 3-4 core colours to showcase your brand. The less, the better. If you start choosing every colour under the sun, it dilutes the potency of your brand.

 

Good things come in fives

We’ve covered a lot of ground in today’s article, and you’ve found it useful. We’ve talked about brand guidelines and their importance in ensuring consistency, and detailed the four key areas your guidelines need to cover to build a powerful brand. Here’s a little recap:

• Consistency: Be consistent with your imagery, typography imagery, tone of voice and your colours. The more consistent you are with your brand, the better.
• Typography: Choose a typeface that represents your brand through trial and error and once you’ve decided, stick with it.
• Imagery: What are the type of images you will use to communicate your brand? Pick a style and use this business wide.
• Tone of voice: Words are powerful, and your brand’s tone of voice should reflect your brand personality. A good tone of voice corresponds to your brand values.
• Colours: Use a maximum of 3-4 colours for your brand. The best brands in the world minimise their use of colour. Remember to keep accessibility in mind, so it’s wise to incorporate dark, mid and light colours in your brand identity document.

 

At VerseOne, we’re helping organisations in the NHS and social housing sector with our Creative Services. These cover everything from helping you use GA4 and Heatmapping to understand the needs of your audience, to creating engaging visual content like motion graphics and email designs. Coupled with this, we’re experts in all things brand – from brand identity document creations to logo designs, so take a look at our services and see how we can help you.

Alternatively, if you want to make waves with a website design that packs a punch, take a look at our website solutions and Intranets to help you deliver enhanced customer and employee experiences.

Looking for more free content to help you discover the importance of brand identity? We offer a variety of free to attend webinars that do just that so be sure to check out our events calendar.

View our NHS events calendar
 

Read Five must-have elements for creating a powerful brand…

We’re happy to announce that The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has just launched their new VerseOne Intranet solution! This marks a significant milestone for the Trust, acting as the final piece in the puzzle for providing an elevated customer and employee experience.

Last year, we had the privilege of delivering the Trust's website project and following this, the team at Hillingdon were able to shift their focus to the development of the intranet.

Hillingdon chose to work with VerseOne as they recognised the need for a comprehensive staff intranet and website that is all housed within a single, unified platform. This approach aimed to simplify content management, ensuring updates could be made efficiently and consistently across both platforms but from one solution.

This unified platform enables the Trust to “manage once and publish to many” when managing content, which ensures that the layout and visual identity is consistent and compliant with NHS branding and accessibility standards. Developing the intranet and website on one unified platform will also enable the Trust to become efficient at updating these systems, and ensure the content is easily kept up to date. Finally, by using a trusted partner from the health sector to deliver this digital solution, The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust benefits from a system that is future proofed to support emerging technologies.

The feedback from Lucy Wills, Acting Head of Communications at Hillingdon, and the users of the platform has been very complimentary throughout, both the project and surrounding the launch of the intranet which speaks volumes about the impact of this project. It's moments like these that remind us of the significance of our work and the difference it can make in empowering organisations to thrive.

A huge thank you to everyone who worked on this project, and we look forward to working with the amazing team at The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust again in the future.

 

Thank you so much for all your hard work in getting this project over the line, particularly Alex for being so patient with me and the changes I requested, it’s really appreciated, great work!

Lucy Wills, Acting Head of Communications
The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Read The final piece of the puzzle for The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust…

User journey mapping is a collaborative process where you identify or plan a user’s touchpoints on their way towards achieving a goal. They heavily align with your user personas, and mapping out these journeys helps you identify business improvements, enhance the user experience and investigate your current processes to understand efficiencies.

This process should be collaborative as you’ll need to conduct your own research, talk to various stakeholders to gather information and speak to your users to see things from their point of view. This could seem like a daunting task, however you don’t need to create these user journey maps for all your personas – start by identifying the goals and outcomes you want your users to reach (like taking a call to action on your website) and go from there.

We’ve put together a simple and easy to use template, which your organisation can edit to effectively structure and capture user journey mapping for your business goals and improvements.

The template is split into sections:

• User actions: a fly on the wall review as a user goes through your identified process.
• Touchpoints: a summary of the user actions and touchpoints along that process.
• User emotions: emotions captured against the touchpoints and pain points.
• Pain points: a summary of why the user feels frustrated, based on evidence you’ve captured and expert intuition.
• Opportunities: remedies to the pain points that all feed up into the business goal.

 

We delve into this topic in great detail as part of our three webinar series around ‘Understanding Your Audience’. These interactive sessions are led by our expert Creative Services team and you can also register your place using the links below:

Part 1: SEO, Google Analytics & Heatmapping

Part 2: Persona Development

Part 3: User Journey Mapping

To download the User Journey Mapping Template, simply click the button below.

Access the template

 

Read VerseOne's user journey mapping template…

54 seconds. 

That’s the average time a user spends browsing a web page. With such a short amount of time to hold someone’s attention and deliver your message, sometimes it can be good to be a little different.  

As the leading provider of digital solutions for the NHS and social housing sector in the UK, we help organisations stand out from the crowd and effectively showcase their services. On average, people form an opinion of your website in the first 0.05 seconds of landing on your page – that’s not very long in the big scheme of things, so websites need to be engaging, easy to navigate and showcase your offering front and centre. 

From maternity or mental health through to sexual health or orthopaedics, we’ve worked with countless NHS trusts to help them showcase their services in a visually engaging and easy to digest website; better known as a microsite. 

A microsite is a branded content site or small group of webpages, that can sit as a subdomain to your current website or as a standalone site. When it comes to branding, content, features and functionality, the possibilities are endless. As are the benefits of using them. 
 

Four big benefits of showcasing your services 

There are many benefits of using a separate microsite to promote speciality services offered by your Trust. To demonstrate just a few, we’ve pulled out four key benefits of using a microsite, along with real-life examples from some of the sexual health services microsites we’ve created for our NHS customers. 
 

1. You can get creative when it comes to branding 

With 48% of internet users stating their number one way of determining an organisations credibility is through its web design, it’s important to be visually engaging. By using a microsite that is separate to your main website, you can tailor your branding to target your specific demographic using colours, layout and imagery that stands out compared to your usual brand identity. 

Example: Barts All East veered away from the usual NHS brand style with their new microsite. By using bold colours, bright people based imagery and a sleek layout they’re tailoring their visual identity to appeal to a modern audience. This not only encourages engagement but helps them seem approachable by giving themselves a sense of personality.  

 

2. Educate your audience and showcase expertise 

A whopping 61% of internet users say that if they don’t find what they’re looking for within five seconds, they’ll go to another site. By creating a microsite to showcase one specific service your NHS Trust offers, you’re able to go further than the normal “here’s where to find us” and provide an extra offering to your users through educational content that emphasises your expertise. Plus, as seeking medical help is a personal journey, educational content can help those less able to book an appointment self-diagnose and self-educate, which ultimately builds trust in your service.  

Example: With a clean and easy to digest navigation, Croydon Sexual Health’s website has a sitemap filled with useful links to further information and educational content for a variety of audiences. This clear user journey means content is easy to find and would cater to users of all technological abilities. 

 

3. Elevate the user experience by implementing unique features 

Forbes found that 88% of online users won’t return to a site after a bad experience, which means that an elevated user experience can have a big effect on the reputation of your Trust. Microsites offer you the freedom to format your website with the user experience front of mind. You can implement unique features like contrast changes to improve accessibility, interactive buttons to take you to new pages, sticky navigations to help you move through the site easily and so much more.  

Example: Requiring medical services is a personal and often private experience. With a separate microsite, you can enable your users to quickly navigate to a non-descript website at the click of a button – just like London North West NHS Trust have done on their Sexual Health and Contraceptive Services website (check the yellow button in the top right hand corner!).  

 

4. Dictate your look and feel for different device types 

With an intuitive platform controlling a microsite that’s separate to your main website, you can easily dictate the look and feel of your content for different device types. In December 2023 the UK recorded 71.32% of all internet traffic as coming from a mobile device. These figures means it’s more important than ever to carefully curate the look and feel of your microsite across different device types to deliver a consistent user experiences that doesn’t hinder your brand reputation.  

Example: Northamptonshire Integrated Sexual Health and HIV service elevated their user experience by tailoring the delivery of their content on mobile compared to desktop. By moving around the content to prioritise navigation links to other key pages, they’ve made it easier for users to find important information and created a clear journey path to move users through the website. 
 

With a whole host of benefits that put your users and your content at the heart of your offering, a microsite is so much more than just another website. It offers an engaging and exciting new avenue for you to connect with your audience and showcase your services whilst upholding your brand reputation. 

If you’d like to discover how your Trust could benefit from one of our digital solutions, click this link and we’ll be in touch! Or if you’d like to learn more about how to enhance your online presence sign up to one of our webinars around understanding your audience, improving accessibility, or creating an enhanced user experience.  

Read How NHS Trusts are using microsites to stand out from the crowd…

Understanding your audience is crucial to tailoring your message and content to appeal to your target demographic. Once you understand your audience, you need to effectively capture this information so it’s useable. This is where persona development comes into play.

Industry best practice centres around the creation of abstracted personas. These move you away from capturing stereotyped demographics, to focussing your profiles around goals and capabilities. You can glean this information by adopting a robust approach that uses data, surveys and real-life customer information to identify trends and uncover useful information that steers away from bias.

We’ve put together a simple and easy to use template, which your organisation can edit to effectively structure and capture your personas.

When building out these profiles, create one document per persona and be sure to make sure you’re:

• Building unique profiles rather than copy and pasting.
• Use real data you have collected and observed.
• Focus on goals related to your product as it stands.
• Be context specific and use information, behaviours and goals.

We delve into this topic in great detail as part of our three webinar series around ‘Understanding Your Audience’. These interactive sessions are led by our expert Creative Services team and you can also register your place using the links below:

Part 1: SEO, Google Analytics & Heatmapping

Part 2: Persona Development

Part 3: User Journey Mapping

To download the User Persona Template, simply click the button below.

Access the template

 

Read VerseOne's abstracted persona development template…

In the ever-evolving technology landscape, generative AI has taken the world by storm. Industry leaders like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, MidJourney and Jasper have put this game changing technology in the hands of the many and it’s a trend that’s only set to compound.  

Technology giants like Microsoft are also working to the same vision. With solutions like Copilot making their way into the hands of organisations using the latest and greatest 365 suite. Over the years Microsoft have proven themselves to be at the forefront of these type of technological advances, which is further exemplified through the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner programme. 

This programme is a testament to their commitment to fostering collaboration and driving advancements in artificial intelligence. It brings together industry innovators who share a common goal: harnessing the power of AI to transform businesses and enhance customer experiences. 

We’re proud to be a member of this partner programme. We see the benefits the advancement of AI can bring to organisations across both the NHS and social housing, and its transformative potential for the suite of VerseOne digital solutions. 

Our Product Team demonstrated several generative content proofs of concept during the VerseOne Customer Days at the end of 2023, and the team are working hard to fold these into the VerseOne DXP during the first half of 2024. 

In addition, our teams are formulating further applications for AI across all disciplines. VerseOne’s upcoming Product Roadmaps will lay out the company’s plans for incorporating value-add AI across our product lines. 

Our partnership with Microsoft aims to emphasises a dedication to security, compliance, and ethical AI practices. Allowing our clients to not only benefit from cutting-edge technology but also enjoy the peace of mind that comes with responsible and secure AI solutions. 

For more information around our involvement in the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner programme, simply get in touch. 

Read VerseOne announces AI Partnership with Microsoft…

It’s been a busy week at VerseOne HQ, with our third go-live of the week…

We’re thrilled to share the exciting news that South West Ambulance Service has successfully launched their brand-new website!

Embarking on their digital transformation journey 2023, our team worked closely with John and the wider team at South West Ambulance Service to host a series of workshops and shape an engaging and accessible website that helps them meet their strategic goals.

The website development focused on a rapid build, incorporating the application of their distinctive branding and logo. The primary objectives were crystal clear – to provide users with an easy and quick navigation experience, delivering a clean, slick, and modern website which is lighter than the existing site. The spotlight was on key pages, including 'Get in touch,' 'Press office,' and 'About us.'

It's always gratifying to witness the successful culmination of a project, and we really enjoyed working with South West Ambulance on this exciting and engaging new website.

Want to see it for yourself? Take a look here: https://www.swast.nhs.uk/

'That’s great, thank you! The website is up and running, it's fantastic!'

Rachael Mower, Web Communications Officer

Read South West Ambulance Service unveils their brand new website…

It’s been a busy start to the week for the VerseOne team – with yet another go-live. This time, it’s the successful launch of the York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trusts' Intranet!

Recognising the importance of a unified information hub for their staff back in 2021, York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals partnered with us to introduce a staff intranet. The primary goal of this project was to create a central platform, that can be accessed from any device and caters to the diverse needs of their workforce; encouraging engagement and enhancing connectivity across the entire Trust.

An employee intranet is more than just a digital platform. It’s a central hub of information that becomes a powerful tool for communication, knowledge sharing, and engagement, ultimately contributing to a more cohesive and empowered workforce.

We’re proud to have helped guide the York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals MHS Foundation Trust along their digital transformation journey, and want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who helped make this a seamless and enjoyable project. We can’t wait to see the great results and day to day efficiencies they can glean off the back of our work together.

 

The new Intranet looks great, thank you!

Emma Clement, Head of Communications

Read It’s all systems go: York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trusts' intranet is now live!…

This week, we’re proud to announce that South West London & St. Georges Mental Health Trust (SWLSTG) have launched their new website!

SWLSTG’s new website was part of a bigger project that involved delivering websites for Oxleas, SWLSTG and South London and Maudsley NHS Trusts. They saw the need to implement a responsive and intuitive website, that was not only compatible for desktop, but provided and enhanced experience on tablet and smartphones, for users in any location. They outlined a core set of objectives that would enable them to:

• Develop a digital presence superior to other Trusts in the region
• Position the Trust as a forward thinking, tech embracing organisation
• Create a consistent user experience across their digital presence
• Consolidate their full web estate under one governance model and platform/CMS

At the heart of this accomplishment is a dynamic team that worked tirelessly to bring the project to life; this really was the definition of a true team effort. The culmination of which reflects in a responsive and intuitive website that positions SWLSTG as a digital innovator within the NHS, fostering a consistent user experience that they can truly be proud of.

We love it when a successful project comes together, and we want to thank everyone from the SWLSTG team for their contribution in bringing this to life.

If you’d like to take a look at their new site, you can do so here: https://swlstg.nhs.uk/

'The Go live went well and thank you everybody for your help.'

Anna Babich, Web Content and Digital Curation Manager

Read Celebrating success: SWLSTG launches their cutting-edge website!…