[arctangent]

I'm the tech lead for the NHS website (www.nhs.uk) and I oversee the team who are building this frontend library.

With respect, I think you fail to appreciate the importance of effective communication of health and care information to members of the public.

The NHS is under incredible financial strain due to an ageing population and one of the UK government's key strategic goals is to reduce demand on GPs and hospitals through channel shift, i.e. providing much better information online so that citizens can prevent illness and also find better avenues for care (e.g. their pharmacist).

This is much more difficult than you might think. For example, a very large number of people seeking health and care advice in the UK are "old" and not used to using the internet. At NHS Digital we have had to carry out extensive research into how best to communicate advice in a way that is suitable for all audiences.

NHS Digital has a key role in the UK health and care system and our goal is to share (and perhaps mandate) our technical solutions to these communication problems. Through this we aim to save the NHS money and promote better citizen health and care.

[jjameswalk]

In addition to NHS.UK there is the Empower the Person programme that is all about supporting patients to access the right service first time. Have a look at www.nhs.uk/transformation Recent example of improvements shows a GP Practice reducing many weeks wait times for GP appointments to a day or two by introducing triage and Online Consultations. There is also 'channel shift' by pointing patients at more appropriate services: 111 Online, Community Pharmacist etc