Adding an alert to your website

The Site Alert module allows you to display an important message prominently at the top of your practice website.

Alerts can be useful for urgent or time-sensitive information, such as:

• unexpected practice closures

• telephone or IT problems

• changes to normal services

• severe weather disruption

• planned closures, such as staff training

• other important information that patients need to see

When enabled, the alert appears at the very top of the website, above the normal website header.

Add or update an alert

1. Log in to your website's WordPress admin area.

2. Open the Site Alert settings.

3. Enter the message you want to display.

4. Choose where the alert should appear:

   • Homepage only – the alert is shown only on the website homepage.

   • All pages – the alert is displayed throughout the website.

5. Choose when the alert should be displayed.

6. Save your changes.

Visit the website after saving to check that the alert is displaying correctly if it is scheduled to be active immediately.

Scheduling an alert

You can schedule an alert to appear automatically at a specific date and time.

This is particularly useful when you know about a disruption in advance. For example, you could prepare an alert about an afternoon practice closure several days beforehand and schedule it to appear on the morning of the closure.

When scheduling an alert, you can set:

• the date and time when the alert should start displaying

• the date and time when the alert should stop displaying

Always set an end time

It is important to schedule a time for the alert to be removed.

Alerts are designed for important, time-sensitive information. An alert that remains on the website after the information has expired could confuse patients and reduce the effectiveness of future alerts.

For example, if the practice is closed for staff training between 1pm and 4pm, the alert could be scheduled to appear at 8am that morning and disappear automatically at 4pm.

Wherever possible, set both the start and end time when you create the alert rather than relying on someone remembering to remove it later.

Turning an alert on or off manually

You can also switch an alert on or off manually.

To remove an active alert, return to the Site Alert settings, switch the alert off and save your changes.

You do not need to delete the alert text before switching it off.

Writing a good alert

Keep alerts short, clear and specific. Patients should be able to understand the important information quickly.

For example:

Telephone problems

We are currently experiencing problems with our telephone system. We are working to resolve this as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience.

Avoid putting large amounts of information into an alert. If more detail is required, consider adding a normal website  news item and categorise it as important to trigger the important banner instead.

When should the alert appear on all pages?

Use All pages when the information could affect patients regardless of which part of the website they visit.

For example:

• the practice is unexpectedly closed

• telephone services are unavailable

• online services are temporarily unavailable

• there is significant disruption affecting practice services

For less critical announcements, displaying the alert on the homepage only will usually be sufficient.

Accessibility

The alert has been designed to stand out clearly from normal website content and uses a high-contrast urgent colour scheme.

When writing the message:

• use plain English

• keep sentences concise

• avoid unnecessary capital letters

• do not use colour alone to explain something

• make link text descriptive if you include a link

Remember to remove expired alerts

Alerts are deliberately prominent, so they should only remain active while the information is relevant.

We recommend setting an end date and time whenever you create a time-sensitive alert. This allows the website to remove the message automatically, even if nobody is available to update the website at the time.

If an end time has not been scheduled, remember to switch the alert off manually as soon as it is no longer relevant.

Leaving old alerts displayed can cause confusion and may make patients less likely to notice future urgent messages.