Finn Stevenson (CEO and Co-founder, Flok Health)
Finn Stevenson is a former professional rower and the CEO and co-founder at Cambridge-based Flok Health: the first CQC-approved AI physiotherapy clinic approved to deliver care on behalf of the NHS. Flok works with NHS partners to deliver same-day physiotherapy appointments with zero waitlist to MSK patients for the very first time. Finn studied medicine and has an MSc in Musculoskeletal Science. Prior to starting Flok, he rowed professionally for 2.5 years before working on growth at CMR Surgical.
Can you explain your job as if you were speaking to a five-year-old?
At Flok, we’ve built the UK’s first AI-powered physiotherapy clinic. It’s available to patients via the NHS and enables people who are experiencing back pain to see a virtual physiotherapist immediately via their mobile phone. We handle the entire care pathway for patients using AI, from initial assessment through to treatment and discharge. Our aim is to speed up access to MSK treatment and help tackle long waits.
What excites you most about your job?
We’re the very first digital musculoskeletal clinic to have been approved by the Care Quality Commission. This means we can deliver all aspects of a patient’s care for back pain—from assessment through to discharge—on behalf of their NHS Trust. This represents an entirely new care delivery model for musculoskeletal health, where patients are empowered to take control of their care and avoid long waits for treatment.
Our approach has the potential to reshape care pathways for a wide range of health conditions, enabling patients to be seen faster whilst easing pressure on NHS services. I’m excited about the potential for this technology to scale and have an impact far beyond the field of musculoskeletal care.
Which trend will change the future of medicine?
I think the most significant shift we’re seeing is a move from companies providing just technology, usually as a licensing model, to providing full tech-enabled healthcare services.
This shift means digital providers are delivering end-to-end care pathways directly to NHS patients. This is in contrast to the old healthtech model, where providers are left trying to deliver multiple technologies that they didn’t build and can’t meaningfully control. The emergence of digital-native healthcare providers like Flok means that more traditional providers like NHS Trusts can form real clinical partnerships and, together, deliver much more joined-up care.
Going down this route as a startup involves a much higher level of complexity and difficulty, as you’re essentially building two businesses at once, in two different regulatory environments. However, we believe it’s worth the effort, as it radically increases the value we can offer to our partners and patients.
What's the best advice you've ever received?
One of our investors once told me that nothing is ever as good or as bad as it initially seems. I think about this a lot. It’s pretty important to find a way to get energized by both the peaks and the troughs. It makes the journey a lot more enjoyable.