NICE is the watchdog body for the NHS.

In 1999 NICE held a competitive tender for the design and implementation of an advanced website to showcase their activities and enable effective communication with patients, interest groups, health professionals and the media. Other requirements were that multilingual content must be supported (NICE is part funded by the Welsh National Assembly), and that the site must be usable by people with visual impairment.

Oxinet won the tender, against competition from IBM and Cap Gemini amongst others, due to their innovative vision for the technology, and proven ability to support and deliver that technology on time and on budget.

In July 1999 the new-look website went on-line and that year won a health-industry award from users for ease-of-use. The site has been continuously developed and refined as part of the on-going project, and also as a result of it’s phenomenal success.

In July 1999 the average number of pages downloaded from the site was around 6,000 per day. In 2005 this stands at more than 250,000 per day and is increasing fast.

In August and September 2002 NICE launched their “Citizen’s Council” project, resulting in over 35,000 application forms being downloaded from the website. This compares to around 6,000 forms which were ordered by phone - clearly showing the success of the website over “old-media”.

The NICE website is hosted and managed by Oxinet in our Oxford hosting facility, but the content is continuously maintained and updated by NICE staff in London, using our online content management system.

Key Features:

Online content management system, High traffic, high availability servers, SQL Server 2000 with live backup, Automatic mailshot generator, Comments & feedback forms, Statistical reporting.

View site: National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NHS)