A UK practice website carries more mandatory content than almost any other small-business site: regulator registrations, complaints procedures, price transparency, cookie consent that actually works. Get that right and the site is free to do its real job — converting a "dentist near me" search into a booked private patient. This is the checklist we build to for dentists, orthodontists, aesthetic clinics, physiotherapists and GP services across the UK.
What must be on the site
- GDC registration. The General Dental Council's advertising guidance requires the practice website to show the GDC registration numbers of dentists and the practice's complaints procedure, and prohibits misleading or unsubstantiated claims. "Painless", "guaranteed" and superlatives like "the best dentist in Leeds" are exactly what the GDC and the ASA act on.
- CQC (England) / HIW, HIS or RQIA elsewhere. Registered providers should display their registration and link to their inspection report. Private clinics providing regulated activities in England must be CQC-registered and say so.
- Price transparency. The GDC expects private prices to be available to patients; NHS practices must display the current NHS band charges. A clear "Fees" page also removes the number one reason patients phone and don't book.
- Privacy notice under UK GDPR covering what health data you collect, the lawful basis (special category data needs Article 9 conditions), retention, and the practice's Data Protection Officer or contact.
- Cookie consent that blocks non-essential cookies until accepted — PECR is enforced by the ICO, and a banner that loads Meta Pixel before consent is a breach, not a formality.
NHS and private on the same site
Mixed practices lose private patients by burying private care under NHS language. Separate the journeys: an NHS page that explains registration, waiting lists and band charges honestly, and private pages per treatment — implants, Invisalign, composite bonding, hygiene plans — each with a fee band, finance options (with the FCA representative example if you advertise credit) and a booking button. The private pages are the ones that need to rank and convert.
Booking and the phone
UK patients still phone more than they book online, so the number must be a tap-to-call button on every page, with opening hours next to it. Add online booking anyway — Dentally, SOE Exact, Carestream and most practice systems offer a widget, and evening bookings from patients who could not call during the day are pure gain. Show real availability, confirm by SMS and remind at 48 hours; late cancellations fall noticeably.
Structure that ranks in a town with six dentists
One page per treatment, each answering the questions patients type — "how much does Invisalign cost in Manchester", "are implants painful", "emergency dentist open Saturday" — with structured data (Dentist / MedicalClinic schema), your Google Business Profile linked to the matching page, and reviews pulled from Google rather than typed in. Our UK website cost guide gives the honest price bands; the free audit shows in a minute which of the mandatory items and technical basics your current site is missing.
Accessibility and speed
The Equality Act 2010 requires reasonable adjustments for disabled users and WCAG 2.1 AA is the practical standard; NHS-facing services are held to it explicitly. Under 2.5 seconds to load on a mid-range phone, images sized properly, and no auto-playing video. These are the things patients never notice when they are right and always notice when they are wrong.
"In the UK the website is part of your regulatory footprint. Treat the mandatory pages as fixed, and spend your creativity on the treatment pages that bring in private work."
Our UK team in London and Manchester hours builds practice sites as a fixed-scope project with the compliance items baked in. Price your build with the cost calculator or ask for a free demo of your practice site first.