NHS YOUR HEALTH MATTERS & EASY ON THE I

Sectors : Healthcare / Community

Client : Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

The DLA graphics team were appointed by Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to develop a website for people with learning disabilities (known as Service Users) and for the healthcare professionals who work with them as part of The Service User Involvement Team.

After their initial brief, the team organised and participated in a series of workshops/Forums. This helped them engage with the service users and the learning disability team to enable them to create a website they would be proud of, take charge of and one that would benefit everyone.

One of the keywords throughout the project was ‘involvement’. Based on this, the end result is a website that is easy to navigate, informative, colourful and enjoyable to use. Members of the service involvement team were also responsible for some of the photography used on the website, again ensuring that the end users were constantly involved in the design process.

Video and animation has been included in the website to help with navigation throughout the site and help service users to promote relevant events and news items. This ensures that the end user is involved with the website even after the design process has finished.

The website also includes a section called ‘easy on the i’ which is an information design service within the Learning Disability Service and Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. This ‘User Login’ and secure section contains a vast archive of symbolic language that healthcare professionals can use to help those with learning disabilities in their everyday tasks.

The overall end product is a user-friendly website and one which the end users themselves both professionals and the service involvement team can really get involved with. They are able to update, track and monitor the people visiting their site using a sophisticated Content Management System as and when they feel necessary.