Patients won’t see the name that you give a questionnaire, but colleagues in your organisation will - so try and make it clear what the questionnaire is about to give your colleagues an idea of whether or not it’s something that they might want to use.

Think about the length of the questionnaire and questions. Long questions are less likely to be answered, so keep them as short as possible. If you really need to add more questions, make sure they’re relevant and that it’s clear to patients why they are being asked.

Make sure the questions have appropriate answers (e.g. if you have a 'yes' also have a 'no' option). This helps avoid patients calling if they're confused or want to answer something that isn’t included in the Florey.

Ensure that appropriate SNOMED codes are used that reflect the information that has been gathered.

Make sure the content of the questionnaire is aimed at collecting data that is non-urgent, due to the fact that questionnaires are not an immediate way of contact with your patients.

Do not design a questionnaire that attempts to suggest different diagnoses, individual risks, or specific treatment recommendations depending on the patient’s answers. Our questionnaires are designed to collect raw data, the interpretation of which should remain in the hands of the healthcare staff.

Do not automatically save questionnaires to the record in batch if they could contain medical information - we don’t block this for questionnaires containing multiple choice or the height/weight questions, to pass on the benefit of this feature to our users, but it’s intended for ADMIN related purposes only.

Be aware of copyright. A lot of questionnaires require licences or citations for use. It is your responsibility to make sure you have the licences in place, and they are referenced appropriately if you are going to use the questions from a copyright questionnaire.

Try to use simple language to make the questionnaires accessible and avoid medical jargon (unless you are going to explain it in more simple terms). NHS Digital provide some useful advice on how to write medical content for the general public.

We don't recommend using a custom questionnaire to collect "Friends & Family Test" responses - the responses won't be anonymous, so they don't meet the NHS England guidance for implementing the Friends & Family Test. Instead, try using our post-appointment messages to create your own anonymous Friends & Family Test!

Be clear on the purpose of the questionnaire or how the answers will be used and try to include this in your invitation message. Patients will be more likely to fill out a questionnaire if the benefit to them is clear (for example, “to help us keep your medication up to date” or “ to help us arrange your vaccination”).

Make use of the customisable confirmation message - tell patients what to expect next and in what timeframe, for example “The healthcare team will review this information and will be in contact within 2 days”.

You can also use the confirmation message to offer generic safety netting advice, for example “if you feel unwell or your problem is more urgent, please don’t wait for a response and make contact with us”.

Test the questionnaire yourself before publishing it by sending it to a test patient and completing it yourself, to understand what patients will see. You can also review it with colleagues to get feedback and iterate your questionnaire.

Remember to double-check spelling before sending your questionnaire to patients

Ensure the grammar is simple, makes sense and is easy to understand (for example, “Would you like to decline the flu jab? → Yes or No?” could be rephrased as “Would you like a flu jab? → Yes or No?” )