How do North East GP websites measure up? 150 practice websites against NHS England's benchmark

What we found

In October 2026 we looked at the public website of every GP practice in the NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB area that we could find, the way a patient would: starting at the homepage and following menus and links. We rated each site against NHS England’s GP website benchmarking and improvement tool, which has 50 criteria rated well, adequately or inadequately, and checked for the information the GP contract regulations say a practice website must include.

• The typical website meets 26 of the 50 criteria well. The middle half of sites score between 18 and 30.
• Only 4 of 150 sites meet 40 or more. 44 meet fewer than 20.
• Only 19 of 150 sites had all 29 contract items we look for. Most were missing one to four.
• 52 sites (35%) open with a cookie banner covering the page on a computer or a phone, before a patient can read anything.

None of this means practices aren’t trying. Most of these websites were built before NHS England published the benchmark, on templates the practice can’t change, and practice teams update them between everything else. The gaps are mostly about structure, which is the supplier’s job, not the practice’s.

How the scores spread

What’s most often missing

These are the benchmark criteria that the most sites met inadequately. Most of them are about where things are, not what they say, so they’re quick to fix on a site built for it.

Reading age stands out. Only 3% of sites wrote their appointments and prescriptions pages at the reading age of 9 to 11 that NHS England recommends. Our guide to writing pages patients understand shows how.

Contract gaps

The GP contract lists what your practice leaflet must include, and says all of it must be on your website too. These are the items our check most often couldn’t find. A missing item might be on the site somewhere a patient wouldn’t look, so treat these as things to check, not proven breaches. Our practice leaflet checklist lists every item.

What practices do well

• Online registration: 91% of sites link new patients to the NHS online registration service.
• Ordering prescriptions online: 80% explain how to order in the NHS App, with a link.
• Out-of-hours help: 98% tell patients about NHS 111 somewhere on the site.

How we checked

A script visited each website on a computer and a phone between 15 and 17 October 2026 and followed menus and links the way a patient would. It rated each criterion from what it found, keeping a note of the evidence, and gave the more generous rating when it couldn’t be sure. We re-scored every site with the same rules on 20 October 2026.

We counted 159 practices, and counted websites shared by a group of practices once, which leaves 150 websites. We left out 5 sites that blocked automated visits or didn’t load. It’s our own check, not NHS England’s or an ICB’s, and we don’t publish any practice’s individual score.