Our Future Health — let’s prevent disease together…

Our Future Health is the UK’s largest ever health research programme. It was started in 2022 to try and help future generations live healthier lives for longer.

The plan is to get up to 5 million UK adult volunteers to participate by providing their health data for analysis. The hope is that this will help with diseases like cancer, diabetes and dementia. Every adult is eligible, it doesn’t matter whether you already have a pre-existing condition, or don’t have any at all.

The official website https://ourfuturehealth.org.uk can explain everything better than I can, but the short version is that if you’re interested in volunteering, all you need to do is complete an online questionnaire and give a blood sample, plus give permission to access your NHS health records. That’s it.

I initially registered for the programme in October 2022. At the time there weren’t any local clinics for me to give a blood sample. Six months later and there still aren’t any that are particularly local, but when I saw an appointment become available for a Saturday afternoon in a local city, I grabbed it. 90 minutes on the bus to get there. Plus getting to and from the bus station at each end, so let’s call it a 2 hour trip there. Plus 2 hours back again.

The appointment took no more than 30 minutes from start to finish, and it would have been a bit quicker if my veins had co-operated. In the end my hand was left with vampire marks, but this is par for the course with me… I don’t have great veins since chemotherapy!

Was it worth spending 4 hours travelling to participate? Yes. I want to help with research as much as I can. It might not ever personally benefit me, but if it can prevent others from having to go through the treatment I have, and still am going through, I’m all for it.

Our Future Health’s Nottingham clinic, April 2023. It looks like a quiet, deserted street, but it was actually really busy, and difficult to get a photo without people in it.

There are a lot of new clinics planned, so eventually it will be much easier for everyone to participate — there’s a news article with a map showing where the planned clinics are: https://ourfuturehealth.org.uk/news/were-opening-seven-days-a-week-and-offering-50000-appointments-in-may/

Current Our Future Health clinics, as of April 2023. All are in England.

Planned additional Our Future Health clinics, as of April 2023. All are in England.

Our Future Health will be writing to adults in certain areas via the NHS, but you don’t need to wait for a letter. If you want to participate, you can register now.

If you’ve taken part already, how did it go?