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How often have you uttered the words “there’s nothing more important than your health”? If you’re anything like me, I’d put the rough estimate at ‘incalculable’. Blessed to have reached my fifth decade with nary a serious health issue to trouble me, I don’t underestimate how lucky I am and, if you can say the same, you are too. But what if someone could offer you a crystal ball – a glimpse into the future to determine whether your luck will stay good, or whether there could be something unfortunate lurking around the corner? Would you take it? Or would you prefer to operate as humans have done for millennia, not knowing what lies in store?

While Echelon’s Harley Street Centre is packed with the most advanced medical equipment and facilities, the client spaces are comfortable and welcoming, offering a homely feel

A glimpse into the future is exactly what is on offer at Echelon Health, by way of their Platinum Health Assessment. Proactive, predictive and utterly personalised, Echelon Health’s personal health assessments are executed with the most advanced medical imaging equipment available on the market and can detect up to 92 per cent of disease causes in men and up to 95 per cent in women. Once you realise that the metaphorical crystal ball is a genuine option, though, doubt can start to set in: is it better to not know? Would it change the way I live today if I found something out about tomorrow? While the benefits of early detection are obvious even to the most superstitious of souls, I can’t say that it wasn’t with a degree of trepidation that I booked myself in.

It soon became apparent, however, that as well as world-beating medical expertise, Echelon Health are also Olympic class operatives in the calming of nerves. My client liaison contact Hannah was an absolute angel, taking me through what the day would hold, answering all my questions and generally making clear that nothing was too much trouble. The cherry on the cake was their offer of an overnight stay at the Mandarin Oriental the night before my treatment; the downside is that I have to undertake some pretty intensive preparation for the colonoscopy that will be happening on the day, but with a generous £200 of credit thrown in for me to treat myself to some pre-assessment indulgence at the award-winning spa, I definitely wasn’t complaining. So far, so pretty much perfect. At 8am on the morning of my booking, Hannah met me at the hotel and accompanied me to Echelon Health’s premises on Harley Street. As warm and friendly in person as she’d been in the run up, Hannah confirmed the day’s schedule with me – and boy, what a schedule. There’d be no point in me pretending that the day wasn’t a pretty intense experience; not unpleasant, just… a lot. To wit: full body mole screen, digital mammogram, blood tests, ECG, CTs, MRIs and ultrasounds of all colours and creeds. But while that’s an exhaustive/exhausting list of procedures to undergo in one day, not only was everyone I encountered so kind and gentle (not to mention professional), but the whole thing was over by around 2pm. A degree of short-term discomfort for a massive long term gain is a pretty good deal.

Echelon Health Founder and Director Dr. Paul Jenkins is passionate about the benefits of the early detection of disease and the role modern medical imaging can play

Two weeks later I had my consultation booked in with Echelon Health Founder and Director, and Cambridge Laureate Endocrinologist, Dr Paul Jenkins. Again, I won’t sugar coat it; in the lead up to my consultation, my nerves were jangling to the extent that I actually went completely teetotal in the interim (can you IMAGINE!), in a spectacular display of ‘locking the stable door after the horse has bolted’ liver repair. My luck, though, was in; I had a hiatus hernia I didn’t know about, some hormone and vitamin levels that needed tweaking and were no surprise to me, and – bizarrely – a couple of surgical staples in my neck for which we could find no reasonable account in terms of the various surgeries I’d had over the years. Curiouser and curiouser. But again, Dr Jenkins couldn’t have been a lovelier or, I imagine, safer pair of hands to be in, had there been any worrying news to report. I felt quite elated afterwards, particularly at the verdict that I had an “impeccable” heart and liver, and “better bone density than a 20 year old” (might put that on my Insta bio). Indeed, the only problem that was left unresolved was how I can stump up the cash for all my loved ones to enjoy the same benefits on a regular basis. Turns out that a glimpse of the future is a wonderful thing, after all. The Echelon Optimum is priced at £24,000 for two people or £14,000 for one. Echelon Optimum clients have a £200 voucher to spend as they wish at the Mandarin Oriental. For further information, see echelon.health