This information may be of use to others who are having difficulty finding
statistical and other information on the new Department of Health web site.
Apologies for cross-posting.

Alison Macfarlane

-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 19 March 2004 15:49
To: Macfarlane, Alison
Cc: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Links to statistics


Dear Alison

Thank you for your feedback and apologies for the delay in replying. There
are a couple of resources which you may find useful when looking for
content on the website. There is a search engine facility, within Policy
and Guidance there is an A-Z guide, the sitemap has an A-Z directory and
provides a guide to where content on the site is posted.

We know there has been some problems with some of the statistical links and
have been working to fix these. If you find any links not working please do
let us know.

If you are having difficulties finding some statistical information please
let me know.

Publications - We were unable to load a number of publications prior to
launch.  As a temporary measure only references are there and users are
referred to a contact point to obtain a hard copies.  The web team has been
adding the full text copies since the launch and have now added all
publications for 2004, 2003, and 2002.  They are now concentrating on key
topics so we can get the most used publications on first. We are working on
improving the search engine functionality. When looking for some documents
you may find it easier to search using the main search facility.

We are working on changes to the Letters and Circulars area of the site to
address the problems you mention.
This work will make it easier to access circulars as the changes will allow
users to see and download recent circulars by year.  Currently, older
circulars are more easily found using the title search in the Letters and
Circulars library. We are aware that there have been some technical
difficulties with the series number search in the library and are working
with the Office of the e-Envoy to find a solution to these.  For now you
might find it helpful to put the series number in quotation marks when
entering it in the series number field, for example "HSC 1999/053".

In response to your general point about the website having changed, I'd
like to share with you some of the thinking behind the changes we have
made.

The Department of Health (DH) website has been redesigned and has a new web
address www.dh.gov.uk. This is because DH has moved its website onto
'DotP', the central government content management platform. 'DotP' was
developed by the Office of the e-Envoy to meet government standards on
accessibility and targets for electronic service delivery. In the process
of re-designing the website, content has been completely re-organised along
thematic lines and some content that was deemed inappropriate or
out-of-date was culled. This was done in response to feedback gathered from
extensive user research we undertook between 2000 and 2002.

The 'DotP' system itself automatically generates URLs for each new piece of
content created. In the migration process, each piece of content that was
moved across from the old website was assigned a new URL according to its
location within the new website structure. The old URLs would not have been
retained even if we had kept the doh prefix.

Setting up a re-direct for each of the approximately 70,000 pages that were
moved would not only have been a huge task but would also significantly
affect the new website's performance. It would also be misleading since
content on the new website is not always identical to that at the old URL.
Some pages will have been merged and others split up.

Links to bookmarked pages or previously published URLs will not be broken.
Users will be re-directed to the new website. Re-directs have been set up
for key areas of the site. In all other cases, if a doh-based URL is used,
users will be re-directed to the homepage of the new site. URLs for all
Domino databases except Press releases, COIN and POINT will remain the
same. We believe that the improved structure, navigation and search
functionality mean that user disruption will be minimised.

The Department of Health reserves the right to move or change its website
URLs at any time in order to meet changing business needs and to
continually improve its online service. External websites are, of course,
permitted to link to the DH website but do so at their own risk. We do not
encourage deep linking but recommend linking to section homepages, which
are less likely to move or change.

I hope this clarifies the situation. I can only apologise for the
inconvenience this may have caused you.

Kind regards


Samantha Castelow
Department of Health
Communications Technologies Team




                    "Macfarlane,

                    Alison"                  To:     New Site Feedback@DOH

                    <a.j.macfarlane@c        cc:     John Fox/SD/DOH/GB@DOH

                    ity.ac.uk>               Subject:     Links to
statistics


                    04/03/2004 08:27











I realise that you have had to launch the new web site before it is ready,
but for users of statistics it is very frustrating that so many of the
links we need do not work and so many of the Department's data are
currently unavailable.


Can you please tell me your timetable for sorting this out and whether it
is useful for users to report links which do not work.


Alison Macfarlane


Alison Macfarlane
Department of Midwifery
City University
20 Bartholomew Close
London EC1A 7QN
Tel (44)(0) 207 040 5832
Fax (44)(0) 207 040 5717
Email [log in to unmask]



PLEASE NOTE: THE ABOVE MESSAGE WAS RECEIVED FROM THE INTERNET.

On entering the GSI, this email was scanned for viruses by the Government
Secure Intranet (GSI) virus scanning service supplied exclusively by
Energis in partnership with MessageLabs.

DH users, see Guide to Email virus scanning under Security in DH on the
Notice Board, for further details. In case of problems, please call IT
support helpdesk.






- - Disclaimer - -
This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential. If you are
not the intended recipient, any reading, printing, storage, disclosure,
copying or any other action taken in respect of this e-mail is prohibited
and may be unlawful. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify
the sender immediately by using the reply function and then permanently
delete what you have received.

Incoming and outgoing e-mail messages are routinely monitored for
compliance with the Department of Health's policy on the use of electronic
communications. For more information on the Department of Health's e-mail
policy click here http://www.dh.gov.uk/terms


The original of this email was scanned for viruses by the Government Secure
Intranet (GSi) virus scanning service supplied exclusively by Energis in
partnership with MessageLabs.

On leaving the GSi this email was certified virus-free