The Wellness30 September 2026Last reviewed 30 September 2026
A yearly health check should include your blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes risk and heart risk, checked the way national guidance recommends, and the screening your age and family history call for. A scan of everything, for everybody, does more harm than good. Your doctor should choose the tests with you.
The checks with the best evidence behind them are the plain ones. Blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, weight and waist, smoking and alcohol, and a calculation of your ten year risk of a heart attack or stroke that brings them together.
The NHS Health Check offers exactly these to adults between 40 and 74 every five years. A private check should include all of them, read by a doctor who then tells you what to do about the result.
Screening follows your age. In England, bowel screening runs from 50 to 74, breast screening from 50 to 71 and cervical screening from 25 to 64. A good check makes sure these are up to date rather than repeating them.
The 2019 Cochrane review pooled 251,891 people and found that general health checks did not reduce deaths from any cause, or from cancer or heart disease, while producing more diagnoses. The lesson is to choose the tests with a reason for each of them.
Some tests should not be offered to everybody. The United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends against screening people without symptoms for thyroid cancer and for narrowing of the carotid arteries, because the harms outweigh the benefit.
A whole body MRI finds something in most people, and most of it is nothing. The American College of Radiology said in 2023 that there is not enough evidence to recommend it for people without symptoms.
A PSA test for prostate cancer is a choice to make after a conversation about its benefits and harms, which is what the UK National Screening Committee advises.
A heart scan that scores the calcium in the coronary arteries is useful when your heart risk is borderline or intermediate, because it moves the decision about treatment one way or the other. A score of zero is usually repeated after several years, not every year.
A family history of early heart disease, cancer or diabetes moves several of these earlier, and your doctor should ask about it before choosing anything.
On Signature, at £6,950 a year, your doctor chooses a yearly blood test with you, up to the Advanced Health panel of fifty five markers, and screening follows your age and your history. You also have the flu vaccine each autumn, and repeat bloods when a result needs one.
On Platinum, at £17,450 a year, the executive physical is included every year. It is a full day with your physician, with your history, a full examination, the Advanced bloods, your heart and body composition, and the screening your age calls for, with the results gone through before you leave and a written plan to follow. On its own it is £2,995.
If you want more, the Longevity+ panel of more than 100 markers is £1,395, and members take 10% off. We will tell you what each test is for before you have it.
A yearly blood test chosen with your doctor usually looks at your blood count, your kidneys and liver, your blood sugar over the past three months, your cholesterol and, where there is a reason, your thyroid, iron and vitamin D.
The value is in the trend. Three years of the same measures show which way you are going, early enough to change it, so we keep the same panel year to year unless your doctor has a reason to change it.
On its own, the Core Wellness panel is £350 and the Advanced Health panel £650. On Signature your doctor chooses one with you each year, up to the Advanced panel, within the fee.
Your doctor goes through every result with you, tells you which ones matter, what to do about them and when to measure them again, and writes the plan into your record so the next doctor who reads it knows it.
Where a result needs acting on, the next step is arranged for you. A repeat test when a result needs one is included in membership, and a specialist is found through our liaison, with a first appointment offered within 48 hours when it is urgent and five working days when it is routine. Nothing waits for you to chase it, and every change is written into the same record.
251,891
people were pooled in the Cochrane review of general health checks, which found no reduction in death from any cause and more diagnoses.
Krogsbøll LT and colleagues, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2019 Open the paper
2023
is the year the American College of Radiology stated there is not enough evidence to recommend total body MRI screening for people without symptoms.
American College of Radiology, statement on screening total body MRI, 2023 Open the paper
2021
is the year the United States Preventive Services Task Force reaffirmed its recommendation against screening adults without symptoms for carotid artery narrowing, as it did for thyroid cancer in 2017.
US Preventive Services Task Force, recommendation statements, JAMA, 2017 and 2021
Once a year is a sensible rhythm for the measurements that change, blood pressure, weight and your bloods. Screening follows its own intervals by age.
Only with a reason your doctor agrees with. Without symptoms, it tends to find things that lead to more tests and more worry.
It is worth it when the day is planned around your history and ends with a written plan. On Platinum it is included every year.
No. We test for what your age, history and results call for, and we explain each test before you have it.