NHS Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust

NHS Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust provides integrated mental health and community health services to people across Berkshire, with around 5,000 staff working across multiple sites, community settings and patients' homes. Growcreate partnered with the Trust to replace a fragmented estate of disconnected websites with a single, unified digital platform, designed around real user needs and built to reduce pressure on services by empowering people to find, understand and access care with confidence.

Bottom line up front

• NHS Berkshire Healthcare is a high-volume, regulated public health organisation serving a diverse community across mental health, physical health and specialist services, where digital clarity directly affects people's ability to get the right care at the right time.

• Growcreate delivered a full-stack programme spanning experience design, AI services, web development, DevOps and ongoing support, unifying a previously disconnected digital estate into a single, manageable platform.

• The new platform makes it simpler for patients, carers and referring clinicians to find services, understand what is available and take action, reducing unnecessary contact and directing people to the right place first time.

• This is an ongoing partnership: Growcreate continues to support the Trust's teams, enhance the platform's capability and evolve its digital estate as NHS services and community needs develop.

The challenge

NHS Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust delivers a broad and complex range of services, from community mental health and physical health support to specialist clinics and home-based care. With approximately 5,000 staff operating across multiple sites and settings, its digital presence had grown to match that complexity, but not always in a coherent way. Patients, carers, non-patients and referring clinicians were navigating a disconnected estate of service-specific websites, often at moments of real stress or uncertainty, when clarity matters most.

Internally, the picture was equally challenging. Communications teams, service leads and digital staff were managing a heavy, unclear editorial process that made simple updates difficult and coordination across teams slow. The Trust needed more than a redesign: it needed a platform that would bring its digital estate into one coherent, scalable hub, one that could genuinely serve people navigating care, support the teams behind the content, and lay the foundations for continued digital transformation in step with the NHS's national direction.

Our approach

Experience design and AI services

Growcreate worked with the Trust to understand how patients, carers and clinical staff actually moved through the existing digital estate, where they struggled and what they needed to find. From that insight, we helped redesign the information architecture and user journeys, creating clear, accessible pathways for people accessing services, making referrals or looking for information during moments of stress or vulnerability. The design approach centred not just on efficiency but on dignity, ease and trust.

We also introduced AI-assisted tooling to support the Trust's editorial teams, helping them produce and maintain content consistently at pace. Rather than adding complexity, these tools made the content process faster and more confident, so residents always find clear, accurate information regardless of how they reach the site.

Web development, DevOps and support

The new platform was built as a single, unified digital hub, replacing the previous fragmented estate and giving patients, carers and clinicians one place to find services, understand pathways and take action. The content structure was designed from the outset to be manageable and scalable, with editorial governance built in so internal teams can update and coordinate quickly without technical overhead.

Growcreate introduced DevOps practices that make releasing changes safer and faster, with structured processes for testing and deployment that reduce risk at every stage. Ongoing support keeps the platform in good health between releases, giving the Trust a reliable partner to call on whenever the platform needs to adapt or an issue needs resolving quickly.

Results and impact

For people across Berkshire, the new platform makes navigating healthcare simpler and less stressful. Whether someone is looking for a mental health service, a community clinic or a way to make a referral, they can now find it clearly and quickly from a single, well-structured site, without jumping between disconnected pages or making unnecessary calls to busy teams. That improved clarity has a direct effect on demand: when people can self-serve with confidence, pressure on clinical and administrative staff reduces, and capacity is freed for those who need hands-on support most.

For internal teams, the shift has been just as significant. What was once a complex, fragmented editorial process is now manageable, coordinated and scalable, allowing communications and service teams to keep the platform current without friction. Beyond the day-to-day, the platform has been built with growth in mind, ready to integrate digital triage tools, personalisation and advanced analytics as the Trust's digital ambitions evolve. Growcreate continues to support, enhance and evolve the estate alongside the Trust, making sure it keeps pace with both community need and NHS digital priorities nationally.