Sector(s)
Team Members
East London NHS Foundation Trust needed a digital platform that could serve different audiences without fragmenting its online presence. People looking for services needed clear information and routes to help; specialist teams needed their own spaces; staff needed access to internal information through a familiar sign-in process.
Big Blue Door began working with the Trust in June 2021. The public website and microsites launched in December 2021, followed by the integrated intranet in April 2022. The original build used Drupal 9, with a bespoke implementation supporting the corporate website, branded service areas and authenticated staff content within the same Drupal installation.
The partnership has continued beyond launch. Big Blue Door hosts the platform on AWS and provides ongoing support and maintenance across the public website, intranet and microsites.
Business case and background
The Trust provides mental health, community health and primary care services across east London, Bedfordshire and Luton. Its website must accommodate people with very different needs, levels of digital confidence and reasons for visiting. A service user seeking information, a carer supporting someone else, a health professional researching a referral and a prospective employee should each be able to recognise the route relevant to them.
The project also had to address the organisational complexity behind those journeys. Specialist services and research programmes needed identities and navigation suited to their audiences, while the Trust needed a maintainable platform that could evolve over time. Its Digital First ambitions required the website to connect people with relevant digital services and tools.
Big Blue Door worked with the Trust and communications partner On the Level PR Limited to translate these requirements into a coherent website and publishing system. The business case centred on a better user experience, more flexible content management and an open-source foundation for future development. Bringing public content, microsites and the intranet into one installation gave the Trust a shared technical foundation while accommodating their different purposes.
About the project
Understanding audiences and improving navigation
Big Blue Door began with stakeholder engagement and a review of the Trust’s existing content and user journeys. Remote workshops explored pain points and the needs of public and professional audiences. Information architecture work in Miro helped the team develop clearer routes through the site.
Wireframes and clickable Figma prototypes turned that structure into something stakeholders could test and discuss. Feedback from internal and external participants informed iterations before development, connecting the design process to the people who would use and manage the platform.
Accessibility and responsive design were central requirements. The work focused on making information easier to navigate and present across devices, with a flexible structure for a broad and diverse audience. The live website provides prominent search and urgent-help routes alongside audience-based navigation.
One installation, distinct service identities
Approximately 15 branded microsites sit within the corporate Drupal installation. Big Blue Door created a framework that allows these areas to use their own navigation and visual identity while retaining a connection to the Trust.
The range of microsites demonstrates the value of that approach. CAMHS provides a dedicated environment for information aimed at children, young people and families. THEDS presents specialist service information and referral routes. DIALOG+ and TACK support research-related content, while the Butabika–East London Link has its own partnership presence.
These areas share a technical foundation, but their content and navigation can reflect their particular audiences. The result is a platform that accommodates organisational variety without requiring every service area to operate a separate Drupal installation.
An integrated staff intranet
The intranet extends the same installation to Trust staff, who authenticate through single sign-on. Big Blue Door integrated the original solution with the Trust’s Active Directory/Office 365 identity environment using SAML.
The intranet delivery included a personalised dashboard, bookmarks, a staff directory and a guided introduction. These features gave staff a dedicated environment for internal information alongside the public website. Authentication and access controls distinguish private staff content from information intended for public visitors.
Practical publishing and integrations
Alongside reusable page components, the original delivery included advanced forms with multi-step journeys and conditional logic, a Trac.jobs vacancy integration, and search functionality supporting the site’s different content areas. Big Blue Door also embedded a third-party virtual assistant as part of the Trust’s wider digital provision.
These capabilities helped the website act as a route into services, recruitment and supporting resources. The Drupal implementation brought those elements into the publishing experience while allowing specialist external systems to perform their own roles.
Agile delivery and major milestones
Big Blue Door organised development into fortnightly agile sprints, working closely with the Trust and its communications partner. Discovery, information architecture, prototyping, design and development established the foundation for the public launch in December 2021.
The intranet followed in April 2022, extending the platform to staff. This phased delivery allowed the public website and microsites to launch before the internal experience was completed. Subsequent support records show continued work on search, accessibility, single sign-on and presentation, reflecting an ongoing relationship with the platform.
Hosting and long-term support
Big Blue Door hosts the shared platform on AWS and continues to provide support and maintenance. The original infrastructure work included automated provisioning, S3 storage, CloudFront content delivery and a web application firewall.
Ongoing maintenance covers the Drupal platform and its hosting environment, giving the Trust continuity between the team that delivered the solution and the team supporting its operation. This continuing partnership helps the website, intranet and microsites remain part of a maintained digital service.
Outcome
The project delivered a public website, branded microsites and an SSO intranet on a shared Drupal installation. Editors gained reusable publishing components, specialist teams gained spaces suited to their audiences, and staff gained an integrated route to internal information.
For East London NHS Foundation Trust, Drupal provided the flexibility to combine these requirements in one platform. Big Blue Door’s continuing hosting, support and maintenance sustain that investment beyond the initial launches.
Why Drupal was chosen
Drupal suited the Trust’s combination of public publishing, specialist microsites and authenticated staff content. Its extensibility allowed Big Blue Door to build a platform around these requirements and integrate it with the Trust’s existing systems.
Flexible page composition was particularly important. Big Blue Door used Paragraphs to give editors reusable components for assembling pages, supporting different content needs within an established design. This helped the publishing system accommodate service information, recruitment content, research resources and campaign pages without requiring a separate template for every variation.
The microsite requirements also favoured Drupal’s flexibility. Individual areas could have their own branding, menus, headers and calls to action while sharing the corporate installation. The same platform could support private intranet content and single sign-on connected to the Trust’s identity systems.
Drupal’s open-source model provided an extensible foundation for ongoing development, with contributed functionality complementing bespoke implementation. The original delivery included advanced forms and recruitment integration, demonstrating how the platform could connect publishing with practical organisational requirements.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
