London DBS

Research

London DBS is a clinic dedicated to deep brain stimulation, led by neurosurgeon Prof. Erlick Pereira and neurologist Prof. Francesca Morgante. It treats movement disorders, chiefly Parkinson's disease, essential tremor and dystonia, and sees patients at St George's on the NHS and at six private hospitals across London.

Its visitors are patients and, as often, the families researching on their behalf: people living with a condition that hasn't responded to medication, weighing an operation. What they need first is trust: who will operate, whether DBS suits their condition, and what the process really involves.

Typical arm-tremor improvement

80%

London hospitals, NHS & private

7

Movement disorders treated

3

Skull openings in surgery

2 mm

Sources: London DBS (opens in a new tab)

Benchmarking

Melbourne DBS, one of the most established DBS clinics online, was the benchmark, alongside other clinics' sites. It got the structure right: a page for every condition, the process laid out step by step, the research and the full team behind it, and London DBS keeps that backbone.

Where it fell short was warmth and pace: grey pages, long walls of text, consultants who appear only further down, and a closing line telling visitors they need a GP referral first. London DBS answers each of those: the founders by name and face on the first screen, the clinic's blue and mint in place of grey, the process in four short steps, risks in pop-ups rather than paragraphs, and the opposite message at the end: no referral needed.

The brand

It started with a moodboard of MRI scans, electrodes and quiet clinical light, then three rounds of marks. The first explored a scan's crosshair over a brain cell, one half of a brain, and a head with a pulse inside it. The second gave the brain a charge, as lightning. The third set the brain on a pulse line, and its bolder version became the mark: unmistakably neurological, and steady rather than dramatic.

The wordmark pairs London DBS with a spelled-out "Deep brain stimulation" so nobody has to know the acronym. The palette is a clinical blue with a soft mint and warm white on near-black, chosen to read as cutting-edge and caring at once, and the type pairs Helvetica Neue's extended cuts for headings with SF Pro for reading.

Designed in Figma

The site follows a patient's questions in order. The homepage introduces the founders by name and face, the conditions DBS treats, the four steps from first consultation to recovery, and why a clinic that does only DBS is different. Each condition has its own page, written for the person living with it.

About walks through the process in detail, with the risks and side effects one tap away in clear pop-ups: honest, but never a wall of warnings. The team page carries every consultant's credentials, research and media keep the clinic's work current, and contact says up front what matters most: you don't need a GP referral, and here are the NHS and private hospitals where you'll be seen.

Built in Next.js, run on Sanity

I built the site in Next.js with its content in Sanity CMS, so the clinic can publish news, media appearances and research, and keep the team and conditions current, without touching code. Pages are prerendered and served from Vercel's edge, with the metadata search engines need for people looking for DBS in London.