Introducing Our Future Health
Today, millions of people spend many years of their life in poor health, suffering from common diseases such as dementia, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Too often, diseases are detected and treated only when patients start showing symptoms. The 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. The scale, depth and detail of Our Future Health make it a world-leading resource for health research. The programme is designed to truly reflect the UK population, including groups of people that have previously been under-represented in health research. Our Future Health may hold the key to hundreds of discoveries, such as:
- New signals that could be used to detect diseases much earlier than is currently possible,
leading to new or improved screening and prevention programmes and earlier treatment. - New ways to predict with better accuracy who is at higher risk of diseases and would benefit
from faster access to screening and prevention interventions. - More targeted or personalised treatments, tools and technologies to delay the onset of disease,
or change the course of disease progression; to reduce disease risks; and more targeted ways to
investigate diseases for people at higher risk.
Recruitment started in England in 2022, followed by recruitment in Scotland in June 2024 and Wales in September 2024. It is expected to begin recruiting volunteers in Northern Ireland in November 2025.
As of October 2025, 2.5 million volunteers across the UK have joined the programme – over 50,000 of whom are from Scotland. There are currently 6 regional clinics operating across 5 Health Boards in Scotland. Plans for further expanding in Scotland with the opening of another 4 clinics, introducing first clinics to NHS Grampian and Tayside Health Boards. The Our Future Health research programme was conceived as part of the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy and has been developed with support and involvement from key research figures. It is funded by the UK government, life science companies and medical research charities. Our Future Health will collect and link multiple sources of health and lifestyle information, including genetic data, across a cohort of 5 million adult volunteers that truly reflects the UK population.
Participants will provide information about themselves as well a small sample of their blood which will be analysed for genetic information as well as stored for future use.
