Is prevention the future of health?

Always loving a good news story, especially when it comes to progress in health and wellbeing, it was exciting (and promising) to see Spa Business's report on the launch of Our Future Health - bringing together up to five million people to develop new ways to prevent, detect and treat diseases.

Described as 'UK's largest ever health research programme', Our Future Health is an ambitious collaboration between the public, charity and private sectors to build the UK’s largest health research programme. It focuses on common diseases such as dementia, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, saying:

"Too often, we detect and treat diseases only when patients start showing symptoms. Our goal is to revolutionise the way we fight disease by collecting information from millions of volunteers across the UK. Together we can help researchers find ways to prevent, detect and treat diseases earlier."

Spa Business says:

"Research currently suggests that 54% of people aged 65 or older live with two or more serious health conditions and by 2035, that figure is projected to rise to 68%."

Evidently it's early days for this NHS partnership and they are currently recruiting volunteers, inviting sector colleagues to sign up and mobilise communities to take part. They currently have more than 1.2 million people signed up.

Industry analyst, Ray Algar, was quoted saying:

“Volunteers will have the opportunity to understand more about their current health status, opt-in to link their research and general medical records and understand more about reducing the risk of developing life-changing conditions.”

We look forward to finding out more.