Optimising My Health...

I recently visited Neko Health in Manchester for one of their proactive health assessments. 

It was a really interesting experience with a lot more time with the clinical team than I was anticipating. 

The whole process was centred around creating a detailed picture of my health status, enabling me to act before there’s a more complex problem to solve.

In the NHS we’re used to seeing healthcare from the point at which symptoms appear, or disease is already established. 

I've long talked about the benefits of proactive care, and as part of Warrington Innovation Network we’re trying to flip that paradigm. It’s on a different scale to Neko, but with the resources we have, and initially focussed on long term conditions and supported by AI. 

The Neko assessment combined a range of measurements, scans and blood tests to build a picture of my health. 

It covered the foundation observations such as height, weight, body composition, blood pressure, pulse and oxygen saturation, alongside more detailed cardiovascular checks and non-invasive scans looking at skin health, circulation and other early indicators of disease risk. 

The blood tests were for assessing cholesterol, blood sugar and inflammation to give a more broad view of metabolic and cardiovascular health.

I really like how it was all pulled together with the doctor towards the end of the assessment. There was much more 1-2-1 time than I think I was anticipating. That’s really important as getting the data about yourself is one thing, but then working out the health implications and how you fix them is something different! 

They took a more detailed photo of a skin lesion that needed a review (the dermatologist has subsequently confirmed all is well 😮‍💨) and we discussed strategies for improving blood fat profiles and how we could map all of this with my wearable data. 

Overall, a very positive experience. 

It strengthened my view that healthcare shouldn’t just be about reacting to illness, but also about understanding risk earlier, supporting prevention, and helping us all stay healthy for longer.