Spire Healthcare ~ Website UX Revamp
Research | Audit | UX Design
2022 March - 2022 April
Spire Healthcare is one of the UK’s leading private hospital networks, with over 39 hospitals nationwide. Their website acts as the primary digital touchpoint for potential patients; a space to research conditions, find consultants, and book appointments 🏥
By 2022, the Spire website had become outdated in both design and usability. The site structure had grown organically over time, resulting in confusing navigation, inconsistent CTAs, and an unintuitive search experience. Patients struggled to find consultants, understand treatment options, or complete bookings without friction.
Our UX team was brought in to rethink the digital experience and ensure it felt trustworthy, human, and effortless across devices.
The Challenge
Private healthcare is an emotionally sensitive and decision-heavy space.
Users arrive anxious, time-pressed, and often unfamiliar with medical or insurance jargon and the existing SPIRE site added to that complexity instead of easing it.
Our key challenges were ~
Simplify the user journey from “I think I need help” to “I’ve booked my consultation.”
Redefine search and booking flows to help users find the right consultant or treatment quickly.
Balance business and user needs - promote Spire’s hospitals and services while keeping the experience human and patient-first.
Bridge technical constraints - create a design that’s feasible for the dev team to implement within tight timelines.
We needed to simplify the experience, improve content discoverability, and ensure
responsive design consistency across devices.
Our goal was to try and turn the Spire Experience into
a reassuring, self-guided journey.. one that feels less like searching for treatment, and more like finding care.
Research & Discovery
Before diving into design, we explored how users actually search for healthcare information accross healthcare services and where Spire’s digital experience fell short. Our discovery work combined competitor analysis, audience profiling, and behavioral archetypes to uncover some patterns.
🔍 Competitor Analysis
We reviewed nine private-healthcare websites including Nuffield Health, HCA, Circle Health Group, Ramsay Health, Fortius Clinic, and others to benchmark best practices and pain points.
Search visibility & behavior
Most sites hid search behind an icon, raising interaction cost. Nuffield’s and HCA’s versions performed best with prominent placement, clear placeholder text, and filters such as location, specialty, treatment, insurer, and language for the results.
Reassurance cues
HCA built early trust by showing ratings
(CQC & Doctify) and human-first copy such as “Find the right expert for your care.”
Filtering & results
Rich filters reduced cognitive load. However, the lack of typo tolerance or smart auto suggestions could cause noticeable dropoffs. This was a reminder that even the smallest usability gaps can break trust in high-stakes journeys like healthcare.
Content hierarchy
Well-structured information using tabs and accordions improved scannability, a recurring weakness on Spire’s existing pages.
These insights helped us define clear success criterias for Spire’s redesign ~
a visible, intuitive search, clear CTAs for booking appointments, & a human, confidence-building tone.
👥 Audience Analysis
We identified that 83% of Spire’s private patients were ~
- aged 35+, affluent (£50k+ household income)
- largely retired or established professionals within local catchment areas.
Their goals centered on speed, quality, and personalized care rather than price sensitivity.
Source : ONS and Spire MI
Barriers included ~
Limited understanding of private-healthcare processes.
Need for reassurance around trust, credentials, and transparency of costs.
This reinforced the need for plain language, simplified navigation, and visible reassurances throughout the journey.
🧩 Behavioral Archetypes
Researcher 🧐
New to Spire, seeking credibility, information, and cost clarity before committing.
Ready to Book 📅
Has shortlisted Spire, wants reassurance and convenience in finalizing a consultation.
Just Want It Treated 💊
Existing patient, needs a frictionless booking process and post-booking visibility.
Back for More ♻️
Returning patient confident in Spire, values efficiency and access to specialists.
Key Findings & Insights
~ from the research and discovery phase.
Search is the heartbeat of the journey.
Hidden icons, lack of suggestions, and poor error handling often leaves users lost. For Spire, surfacing search prominently became a top design priority based on research results.
Prominent Call to action
We needed to add a prominent global 'Book treatment' or 'Find a Consultant' call to action to ensure that the booking funnel could be initiated with as less searching around as possible.
Trust and reassurance drive conversions.
Patient ratings, consultant credibility, and transparent costs aren’t just “nice to have” on the website.. they’re psychological triggers that help anxious users commit to care.
Too many clicks, too little clarity.
The whole booking process demanded too much effort and gave very little feedback. We had to ensure that the "Just want it treated" users have few barriers to get the booking done.
Simpler messaging and better structuring.
We had to ensure our messaging, imagery and content appeals to the range of audience age groups that fall in the the 35+ with an income of £50k+ bracket. Also try and capitalise on popular and highest revenue treatments through prominence to influence the booking figures.
Site & Experience Audit
We then did an experience audit for Spire's website which revealed where the website fell short and where simple UX shifts could make it effortless, reassuring, and human.
Core Recommendation 1 - 🗺️ Masthead & Navigation
Simplify and re-structure content to match how users actually search for healthcare, not how hospitals organize it.
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Lesson the prominence of the telephone number
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Put more of a focus on the global search
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Add placeholder text on the global search to promote the core areas of the business
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Global 'Find a hospital', 'Find a treatment', 'Find a consultant' call to action
Core Recommendation 2 - 🏠 Homepage & Hero Area
Shift from corporate-first to patient-first design.
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See if we can change to imagery that represents the services carried out and gives confidence to the user.
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Primary hero messaging that represents what Spire offers to patients.
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'Book with Spire' CTA which would go straight to a revised single booking page.
Core Recommendation 3 - 🔍 Search Experience
Make search visible, forgiving, and smart.
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Consider a search takeover as soon as the search bar is clicked, like a page or full overlay to draw the users eye to the search task at hand.
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This approach would enable us to feature more suggestions and category filters as the user is typing, limiting the number of results returned.
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Predictive search, typo tolerance, and auto suggestions.
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We could also promote popular content and areas of high business importance.
Core Recommendation 4 - 📅 Booking Flow & Booking Form
Simplify, shorten, and surface progress.
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Ensure terminology of 'Book Now' or 'Book with Spire' is consistent across the site.
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Ensure entry point to booking is the same for private and Insured customers
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Pre-selected location should be present here but can easily be changed.
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Booking form should be short, only ask for critical information required to book to limit drop offs, ask for supplementary information after the booking.
User Journey Mapping
Next we mapped complete end-to-end journeys for three primary user types, Self-Pay, Insured, and NHS patients. Each user type had unique motivations, expectations, and entry points into the Spire ecosystem.
Self-pay users often began through Google searches, browsing for hospitals, consultants, or treatments or via recommendations from other patients and doctors. Their flow revealed key friction points in discovery, navigation, and enquiry completion. Insured users followed a more structured path.. starting with insurance referrals and relying heavily on consultant availability and treatment clarity. NHS users, though out of scope for our redesign, were still considered in the journey analysis to ensure continuity of experience when crossing over to private care.
Self Pay | Enquirer | Google search | Recommendation
Self Pay | Patient
Insured | Patient or Enquiry
NHS | Patient or Enquiry
Through these journeys, we uncovered critical drop-offs, redundant steps, and opportunities to make navigation more intuitive and outcomes more predictable and moved on to Wireframing.
Bringing the Ideas to Life
Low-Fi Wireframes
We created a few lo-fi wireframes using a pen and paper to get some initial feedback about the whole layout and the search experience, which had surfaced as one of the biggest usability gaps during discovery. Our focus was to help users find what they were looking for; fast, confidently, and without second-guessing.
For this we introduced a fixed left-hand filter sidebar on the desktop to refine results easily. Each search result included a clear, purposeful CTA - whether it was Book Now, Find a Consultant or a Treatment detail page (article/video). To ensure conversion, 'Book Now' results were prioritized whenever relevant.
We also explored pagination vs. lazy loading for result lists and mapped out different filter categories treatments, hospitals, consultants, and more to refine their results.
Even in the no-results (empty) state, we turned a potential dead-end into an opportunity: suggesting popular treatments or top consultants instead of showing a blank screen.
We also created wireframes for the mobile experience, as improving usability on smaller screens was another key focus. While our primary audience was users aged 35 and above, Spire’s post-pandemic website analytics revealed a 70% increase in mobile visits, predominantly from the 25–35 age group. This indicated that a younger segment was also engaging with the platform through their phones. Therefore, it was crucial to design an experience that catered to both groups, ensuring a smooth and consistent journey across desktop and mobile.
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
The next step was to make changes according to client feedback in our lo-fi prototypes.
Filters applied in the left sidebar
Empty state (no results found)
Final (high fid) Wireframes
At this point, the Spire team had onboarded Funnelback for powering the search experience.
Funnelback is a search platform and suite of tools for creating and managing search experiences on websites that offered a unified search experience and both simple and advanced search capabilities.
Funnelback provided some feedback on the mid-fidelity wireframes and decided against the side-bar filtering approach. We had our views but then finally found a middle ground to introduce the filters on top instead of the side, which would help reclaim some real estate space on the site as well. Funnelback also pointed out that we may not have sufficient content to justify a filter based on content type (article, video), hence the 4th filter was dropped.
I then proceeded to create the wireframes based on info from Funnelback about what they could/could not implement.
Design App - Sketch
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Users can search by keyword and location (town, region, or postcode).
The Search Experience.
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The search bar is now prominently placed at the top for immediate visibility, taking full focus when opened through a page takeover layout. It supports auto-suggestions and typo tolerance, ensuring users find relevant results even with misspellings.
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Search results display the most relevant options with any selected location pre-filled. From there, users can further refine results by treatment or consultant, creating a quick and intuitive search-to-filter flow.
The Booking Experience
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The 'Book with Spire' CTA appears in both the Hero section and top navigation, leading users into a simplified 3 step booking flow ~ Search Consultant & Appointment, Enter Patient Details, and Pay & Confirm.
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Users can filter consultants by name, treatment, and location, and view their availability across hospitals, with the nearest option shown first.
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Bookings can be made either by logging into MySpire or by continuing as a guest, ensuring flexibility.
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The booking form only includes essential fields, and users see clear confirmation of their chosen time, date, and cost before finalizing payment.
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A confirmation screen and email follow, allowing users to optionally create an account to save their details.
The Landing Page.
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The landing pages were restructured for better hierarchy, spacing, and clarity, allowing users to find information effortlessly.
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For location-specific pages (e.g., Spire Bushey Hospital), the contact number and key CTAs are placed prominently in the Hero section, along with a 'Find a Consultant' option that skips redundant location filters.
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Each page highlights top treatments and specialties, travel and contact details, and patient feedback for transparency and trust.
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Testimonials and nearby hospital suggestions reinforce credibility and continuity across pages.
Treatment details page
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The treatment details page provides a comprehensive overview of each treatment, including procedure description, duration, type of anesthesia, and payment options (self-pay or insurance).
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It lists available consultants and hospital locations offering that treatment, with an optional location filter to show the nearest relevant hospitals.
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Each treatment page also outlines why to choose Spire, featuring key strengths and success factors. Users can browse FAQs covering preparation, procedure, recovery, and risks, followed by CTAs to book a consultation or explore related topics.
✨ Final Outcomes & Reflection
This project concluded at the UX phase, covering research, discovery, and high-fidelity wireframes. The UI design and development were handled by another team, using our recommendations as the foundation for their redesign.
While user testing wasn’t possible due to time constraints from Spire's side, our delivery included analytics, usability insights, and interaction flows and detailed wireframes to guide the next phase of implementation.
The Spire team was thrilled with the clarity, structure, and empathy of the UX work ~ a redesign that not only made navigation easier but also made finding care feel calmer, more human, and more intuitive.
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