If MSW isn't working for your practice anymore, here's what to do.
MySurgeryWebsite has held about half the NHS GP website market for years — and the rest of it has had to put up with the consequences. If you're reading this, you've probably had one of those consequences yourself. We're a clinician-owned alternative, typically £125–£175/year cheaper, with no lock-in. Here's the honest comparison.
Practice Digital vs MySurgeryWebsite
Based on documented practice-manager complaints we've collected over the past year, the published MSW website, public reviews, and the contract terms practices have shared with us.
| MySurgeryWebsite | Practice Digital | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual price (year 2+) | ~£525/year | £399/year — all-inclusive, locked 5 years |
| Setup fee | Variable | £0 — no setup fee, ever |
| Contract length | Multi-year, auto-renew | Monthly rolling after year one, 30 days' notice |
| Price-rise protection | None | Price never rises |
| Built by clinicians | No (Leeds tech company) | Yes (NHS doctors, nurses and PMs) |
| Clinical sign-off on content | No | Every page |
| Welsh-language (Cymraeg) toggle | Add-on or unavailable | Included as standard |
| Community languages (Polish, Romanian, Punjabi, Urdu) | Not offered | All four included — matches Welsh GP demographics |
| NHS England benchmarking compliance | Variable (some sites fail audit) | 100% by design, re-validated annually |
| WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility | Inconsistent | Built in by default |
| Update turnaround (Managed) | Generic ticketing, slow | 48-hour SLA, direct WhatsApp/phone |
| Direct GP contact | No | Yes — our clinical lead is a practising NHS GP |
| Bespoke design | Templated | Bespoke per practice |
| PCN bundle deal | None | 20% off for 5+ practices |
| Migration support if you leave | Charged extra | Free, always |
Practices that benefit most from switching
We're not the right fit for every practice. We're a particularly strong fit if any of the below describes you:
- Your MSW contract is up for renewal in the next six months and the renewal letter quoted a price increase.
- You serve patients in Wales and your current Welsh-language solution is a Google Translate widget.
- An NHS England benchmarking exercise has flagged compliance gaps on your current website.
- Your practice manager spends more than two hours a week wrestling with the existing CMS.
- You're in a PCN where multiple member practices are unhappy with their websites — we offer 20% off across the bundle.
- You'd value being able to phone a doctor when you need a change made, rather than logging a ticket.
Up and running within two weeks
The hardest part of switching is usually the worry. Here’s how it goes.
See the demo
Take a look at our live customer demo. Pricing is on the page: £399 first year, no contract. If it looks right, the “Build mine” button starts your own — no call needed.
Sign up & start
Short onboarding form, Direct Debit set up via GoCardless, and a 30-minute start-up call. We agree a go-live date that lines up with your existing MSW renewal.
Build & clinical review
Site built and ready in under two weeks. Content moved across from your MSW site, every patient-facing page reviewed by our clinicians, two rounds of feedback with you.
Go-live & handover
We notify MSW of your cancellation, point the DNS across, run a 100% benchmarking check, and stand by for the first 30 days. Your patients never see a broken page.
Questions practice managers ask before switching
What if our MSW contract auto-renews before we can switch?
Tell us your renewal date and we'll plan backwards from it. If MSW have already auto-renewed for the next year, we can still onboard you in parallel and go live on the day your MSW contract next expires — you just won't pay us anything until the new site is live.
Will we lose anything from our existing MSW site?
No. We migrate every page of content, every patient-services link, every news item, and every embedded widget. If there's something specific you're attached to — a particular page layout, a piece of copy — flag it on day one and we'll preserve it.
What about our domain name?
Your domain stays yours. If MSW currently manages it, we'll move it to a registrar in your name as part of the switch. We never hold a customer's domain — that would be a lock-in tactic and we don't believe in those.
How much practice-manager time does the switch take?
Around three hours, spread over the two-week build. A 30-minute start-up call, two rounds of design feedback (about an hour each), and a sign-off review before go-live. The rest is on us.
Do you ever take on customers from non-MSW providers?
Yes. We've migrated practices from in-house WordPress builds, iatro, Silicon Practice, Wix, Squarespace, and a few you wouldn't have heard of. The process is essentially the same.
What if we're not happy after switching?
30 days' notice, no exit fee, free content migration to whoever you choose next. We'd rather lose your contract gracefully than keep you grudgingly.
Start with the demo — see what good looks like
Browse our live customer site to see what NHS- and HIW-compliant looks like in practice. If you want to switch, we’ll quote and onboard. If not, you keep the reference.
See our demo siteDecision-ready guides
- Six-step switching playbook — how it actually works, no double-payment.
- Pricing — £399/yr flat, 5-year price lock
- Parkhouse Surgery case study — a real switch, the maths, the timeline.
- NHS benchmarking tool guide — how the new site will score.