Before breakfast, you may already have checked your sleep score, resting heart rate or blood oxygen level. By bedtime, you might look at your step count, stress score or even an estimate of your biological age. For millions of people, keeping tabs on health and wellbeing has become almost as routine as checking the weather.

Tests and measurements that once meant a trip to the doctor can now be done at home using smartwatches, phone apps and self-testing kits. And our latest research suggests that this trend is likely to continue.

In a survey of more than 4,000 UK adults, 79% said they already track at least one aspect of their health or wellbeing. Even more (86%) said they would be willing to do so if the NHS recommended it.

The NHS is also moving in this direction. Rather than relying on hospital appointments, it wants more people to manage long-term conditions at home, with digital tools helping to spot problems earlier. That means self-monitoring is likely to become much more common. The UK government’s ten-year health plan for England identifies a shift from hospital to home, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention as key priorities for the future of healthcare.

Public attitudes towards self-monitoring health

In our survey, blood pressure was the most commonly........

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