Thornbury Health UK - healthcare referral platform website design for an NHS-facing brand

Thornbury Health UK is the British edition of our fictional healthcare referral platform, built for the way referrals actually arrive here: e-RS worklists, NHSmail inboxes, letters and fax. It shares every template with the US edition, but reads as a UK product: NHS commissioners and private insurers, NHS numbers and ICBs, UK GDPR and PECR, and a palette of deep green and burgundy drawn from heritage editorial print.

Project facts

• Client: Thornbury Health Ltd (fictional), registered in England and Wales (sample)
• Sector: Healthcare referral and intake software
• Markets: United Kingdom: London and Cardiff offices, customers from Leeds to Southampton
• Services: Market localisation · Copywriting · Brand adaptation · Healthcare SaaS website design · Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA) · SEO foundations
• Templates: 14 page templates shared with every Thornbury Health edition
• Stack: Next.js (static export), React and Tailwind CSS; one region pack (copy, data, alt text) and one theme per market

The brief

A UK healthcare product site that speaks NHS, not American health tech

The risk with a UK edition is inheriting the US one: dollars, prior authorisation, HIPAA, ZIP codes. Thornbury Health UK keeps the same fourteen templates but replaces every funding route, document channel and legal reference with a British one. Referrals arrive by e-RS, NHSmail and fax; funding is checked against NHS commissioning and insurer rules; the demo form warns against entering patient data and the privacy page follows UK GDPR and PECR.

Designing for United Kingdom

What actually changed between the US and this edition

• Story - US edition: US healthcare technology company, 27 markets · United Kingdom: UK company with London and Cardiff offices, NHS and independent-sector customers
• Funding - US edition: Insurance eligibility and prior authorisation · United Kingdom: NHS commissioning (ICBs) and private medical insurer checks
• Channels - US edition: Fax, phone trees, re-typed PDFs · United Kingdom: NHS e-Referral Service, NHSmail, letters and fax
• Search - US edition: Referral management, patient intake software · United Kingdom: Referral management, e-RS, pre-authorisation, patient access
• Legal - US edition: HIPAA, state privacy rights · United Kingdom: UK GDPR, Data Protection Act 2018, PECR, ICO
• Consent - US edition: Notice banner · United Kingdom: Cookie settings page with opt-in for analytics
• Emergency copy - US edition: Call 911 · United Kingdom: Call 999; NHS 111 for urgent advice
• Look - US edition: Deep teal, coral, Plus Jakarta Sans + Inter · United Kingdom: Deep green, burgundy, heritage editorial palette; same sans pairing
• Proof - US edition: US customer stories · United Kingdom: UK customer stories from Leeds, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Exeter, Glasgow and more

Brand adaptation

The same Thornbury Health, with a local accent

Deep green (#1f4d3a) carries the interface and links; burgundy (#8C2F39) is reserved for accents and calls to action, with a softer burgundy for dark panels. The background is a warm off-white (#F6F3EE) and borders are a muted stone (#DAD4C8), giving the site a measured, editorial feel rather than clinical blue. Plus Jakarta Sans headings and Inter body copy are unchanged from the US edition. The path-to-plus mark keeps its coral lane and teal cross in the original, but the site palette swaps coral for burgundy so CTAs sit in the heritage scheme.

Homepage, product and solutions

The homepage opens on the referral queue visual with Thornbury reads every referral letter, e-referral and fax, checks funding and routes the patient to the right next step. Three value props cover automatic intake, funding checks on arrival and updates without phone calls. The workflow section runs From referral to first appointment in four steps, and the solutions grid covers home equipment, infusion and homecare, fertility, independent clinics, NHS trusts and homecare pharmacy. The most distinctive flow is the document intake demo: a visitor presses Process sample referral and watches an invented letter being split, read and checked, with a simulated request sent to the referrer.

Compliance, accessibility and trust

• Privacy notice under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, naming Thornbury Health Ltd (fictional) as controller and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) as the regulator.
• Cookie settings page explaining that the concept site sets no tracking cookies, and that a real deployment would ask before any non-essential cookie under PECR.
• Footer disclaimer: Thornbury Health is a fictional concept by a design agency, not a healthcare provider, and does not give medical advice; call 999 in an emergency or NHS 111 for urgent advice.
• Demo form warning: do not enter patient data; the walkthrough uses invented sample documents only.
• Passes automated WCAG 2.2 AA checks on every page at 360, 390, 768 and 1440 px: no contrast failures, no unreachable controls, no horizontal scrolling.
• A language switcher built from hreflang sits in the header on desktop and in the footer on phones.

One system, twelve markets

Every visible string lives in one region pack per market (copy, data and alt text), and every colour and typeface in one theme file. This edition needed no new templates or components: a region pack, a theme, local data and legal content made it a different brand experience. For a health-tech company with international plans, a new market becomes a content project rather than a rebuild.

Deliverables

• Market profile: language, formats, legal and seasonality
• Full localised copy across 14 templates, header, footer and forms
• Brand adaptation: palette, type pairing and logo descriptor
• 14 regional photographs (Pexels, credited in credits.json)
• Local legal content
• Accessibility pass (WCAG 2.2 AA, automated) and QA at four screen widths
• Portfolio media: stills, full-page captures, scroll video, OG image, brand board