The NHS is undertaking a world-leading preventative research programme called Our Future Health. Our Future Health aims to revolutionise disease prevention, detection and treatment by collecting health data from up to 5 million volunteers across the UK.
The programme is endorsed by 16 leading health charities and has secured £100 million in funding from major life sciences companies. This funding, along with £79 million from UK Research and Innovation, will help establish Our Future Health as a world-leading health research resource.
The goal is to create a detailed picture of the nation’s health to help researchers identify ways to prevent, detect and treat diseases earlier, before symptoms appear. This is crucial as 59% of those aged 65+ in the UK have multiple chronic conditions, projected to reach 70% by 2035.
The government has also announced a £3.4 billion investment over the next three years to modernise NHS technology and digital infrastructure. This investment is intended to unlock £35 billion in productivity savings through measures like upgrading MRI scanners with AI, digitising patient transfers, and providing digital passports and an NHS staff app.
As part of this, the government plans to turn the NHS app into an exercise tracker that doctors can use to monitor patients’ activity levels and initiate health interventions. However, it’s unclear if this idea has been piloted to gauge consumer comfort with having their steps tracked by doctors.
By making the data available to researchers from academia and industry, the aim is to accelerate the development of new diagnostics, treatments, and prevention strategies to improve health outcomes, modernisation and reduce the burden on the NHS.
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