Why We Chose Mental Health

Find Care Compare didn't start with a product roadmap or a market analysis. It started with watching people I knew completely unable to figure out how to navigate the NHS.

I saw friends trying to get an ADHD assessment who'd spent weeks trawling Reddit threads, colleagues who didn't know if they needed a GP referral or could self-refer, and people who'd found a private clinic but had no idea if their GP would do shared care, or what that even meant.

They were struggling with a system that wasn't organised around them.

The real problem wasn't (just) waiting lists

Everyone talks about NHS waiting times, and yes, they're a genuine problem. But the thing that kept striking me (having worked inside the NHS) was that confusion was causing harm long before anyone reached a waiting list.

Friends and family didn't know what Right to Choose actually entitled them to. They didn't know whether a private assessment would be accepted by their GP, or what a regulated provider looked like versus an unregulated one. They didn't know what questions to ask, or even where to start.

The services existed - they just weren't navigable.

Why mental health specifically

Mental health sits at an intersection of NHS commissioning, private provision, medication pathways, shared care agreements, and self-referral routes. It's genuinely complicated, and it's complicated for people who are already in need of help.

The combination of high complexity and high emotional stakes is exactly why we started here. If you're going through something difficult, you shouldn't also have to become an expert in healthcare admin to get help.

Other specialties tend to have clearer pathways. Cardiology, dermatology - you're usually either on an NHS pathway or you're not. Mental health is more complicated. And that is where people fall through the gaps.

What we decided not to do

From the start, we were clear that Find Care Compare would serve as a guide along the way. For example, explaining what Right to Choose actually covers, showing real pricing, flagging when a GP referral is required, or making it obvious which providers are regulated. Mental health made those standards non-negotiable, and that's shaped everything we've built since.

The longer ambition

Mental health was the right place to start, because it was probably the hardest vertical we could have chosen. Improving navigation here meant building something that could work anywhere.

The goal is simple - healthcare should be as easy to navigate as anything else you make an important decision about. You can compare mortgages, universities, flights in seconds. You should be able to compare healthcare providers with the same clarity.

We're a long way from done. But mental health is where we proved that others agree with us too.

Roxanne Stevenson-Brown

Founder & CEO, Find Care Compare