Registration Help

To register patients you need to collect quite a lot of data items from them. Unfortunately (unless anyone knows otherwise?) you also need to collect a signature. So online registration as such is not actually possible at present, but this is the next best thing. Patients can submit their details from your website, then you can prepare the registration forms and post them to the patients for them to sign and return.

Which Doctor to Register with?

You may want to show the prospective patients a list of your doctors and let them say with whom they prefer to register. Or you may take new registrations in rotation within the practice, in which case you can allocate the registration to the rota doctor before sending the forms to the patient for signing. Indicate with this setting whether or not you wish to include on the registration form a drop down list for the patient to select the doctor with whom they wish to register.

Dispensing Practice?

If you are a dispensing practice say yes here to make the registration form display the two additional questions relating to dispensing, otherwise say no here to hide these questions.

New Patient Questionnaire?

You have the option to add to the end of the registration form extra questions to gather basic patient information. This will enable you to plan your services and streamline your new patient check consultations.

CAUTION We strongly advise that you do not enable this option unless you are both using the secure product with SSL and also have set up encryption to your reception email address. Patients will be entering details of their medical and social background and it is important that you protect this information against interception. If you wish to enable this questionnaire select yes, otherwise select no.

If you enable this questionnaire, then all questions are compulsory. That means that patients cannot register without completing the questionnaire. Possibly you may lose a few potential registrations because of this, but on the other hand you will get much better background information on those who do register.

This option has been introduced at the request of one practice and perhaps the questions are slightly skewed towards their requirements. If you require additional options for your population e.g. other languages adding to the lists, then email support@gpuk.net and submit your request. If you feel that you need additional questions then also please submit those for consideration, though clearly it is best to avoid making the form too long.

It is also possible to have a different form with questions specific to your practice/area. There may be a charge for this service - please submit your specific requirements to support@gpuk.net if you wish to receive a quotation.

Another option could be to make this form optional after registration is completed, rather than being a compulsory part of the registration procedure. Ask support@gpuk.net if you think this would be useful for you, though this may make it likely that fewer forms would be completed.

Background Colours

The registration form is rather long and wordy. To break it up and make it easier to navigate you can set each block to alternating colours. Initially these are set to pale brown and light blue but you can choose other colours.

There are several ways of naming colours, but unfortunately not all browsers will recognise them all. Whilst it may seem simplest to use descriptive names such as lightyellow or red, and often these will work, we suggest that you use the "hex" notation which is more standardised. But be aware that colours other than the recommended internet colours may appear a different colour in someone else's browser than they do in yours, so you may not get the effect that you intend if you get too adventurous.

For a guide on web safe hex colour codes look at Visibone

Hex colour labels are made up four parts:

1. the symbol # to indicate that this is a hex number
   
   
2. a hexadecimal number (e.g. 13 or c7 or ef) to indicate the Red content
   
   
3. a hexadecimal number to indicate the Green content
   
   
4. a hexadecimal number to indicate the Blue content
   
   

e.g. #ffffcc (or #FFFFCC is the same) has maximum (ff) Red, maximum Green, and near maximum Blue, and ends up looking like Pale Weak Yellow.

The highest digit in the hex system is f, and each colour has two digits i.e. the range for each colour is is 00 - ff (which corresponds to 0 - 255 in the more familiar decimal notation).

So #ffffff is white, and #000000 is black.

Don't try to use the descriptive names shown on Visibone as they won't work here for you, if you see a colour that you like then use its hex number.

To remove the colours and just show the page background, clear the boxes and the colours will be removed.

Checkbox to confirm that the patient has read the Privacy Notice?

This selection item lets you choose whether or not the patient should be shown a checkbox to tick to confirm that they have read the privacy notice. Default is Yes, in which case the appointment booking will not be accepted if they have not ticked this box. If you do not wish this box to be required then select No and it will not be displayed or required. Changing this setting in any area (prescriptions, appointment, registration/address updates) changes it for all these areas).

Customise the patient messages on the Registration Screen.

You can change the text of the introduction on the registration screen to suit your requirements. Be sure to view the finished result to make sure that it works as you intended.

Any text that you enter will automatically be enclosed in justified paragraph tags, so there is no need for you to enter paragraph tags.

The first section is for the text on the opening introductory page. Use this to explain your registration policy, catchment area etc.

The second section is for the text on the actual registration page. Use this to give any instructions regarding completing the forms.

HTML tags which you may find useful

If you wish you can include most html tags. Below are some examples of html tags you may find useful, though you can also use others. Most tags are used in pairs, an opening tag to indicate the start of some formatting, and a closing tag to indicate the return to standard formatting.

It is actually better to use the style sheet to set style and formatting, but that is more complicated and for minor matters such as highlighting in bold, using the tags below is quite acceptable.

• To make a word or words appear in <B>bold</B> use tags like this.
  
  
• To make a word or words appear in <I>italic</I> use tags like this.
  
  
• Try making text <big>big</big> or
  
  <big><big>bigger</big></big>
  
  or perhaps you prefer <small>small</small> or
  
  <small><small>smaller</small></small>
  
  
• To make words appear in colour use tags like this:
  
  <FONT COLOR="RED">colour</FONT>
  
  
• To include a hyperlink enter a filename and a description like this
  
  <A HREF="filename">Link Description</A>
  
  "filename" could be
  
  
  • just the name e.g. opentimes.html if that file is in the same directory as your page, or
    
    
  • include the directory "docs/filename.html" if it is in your docs subdirectory, or
    
    
  • the full address if it is a link to somewhere else "http://www.myserver.co.uk/subdirectory/filename.html"
    
    
• To include a picture upload the file to your images directory and include a link like this
  
  <IMG SRC="images/filename" alt "description of picture" height = "73" width = "124">
  
  give the full address if the picture file is somewhere else e.g. instead of "images/filename" put "http://www.myserver.co.uk/subdirectory/imagefile.jpg"
  
  

Encryption

For information on encrypting the emails from your registration system to your practice read the Encryption Help Page.

Running mode

CAUTION This switches the repeat registration system between DEMO mode and STANDARD mode. Actually all it does is to insert or remove the warning messages at the top and bottom of each screen, so that patients know whether or not the system is in operation. This does not affect any of the settings above. The Demo mode is the fully working system with the only difference being the warning messages.

The system is initially configured in Demo mode so that you can evaluate and customise it. Just play with it and try out making registrations for yourself, and so on. When you are confident that it is a trustworthy and useful system then switch it into live mode and it will be available for new patients to register with you.

You may then not need to use this option again, but if for any reason you wish to temporarily disable the system in the future you could use this option to return the display to demo mode.

CAUTION Before using the system in Standard mode, and also to get the best understanding of it in Demo mode, ensure that you have set up a valid reception email address (which for demo/test purposes may be an alternative address such as your home email). Please follow the instructions on setting up and using the system before switching to live mode.