Cancer Research UK’s patient recruitment drive which has just got going as part of its Stratified Medicine Programme is getting  a lot of attention today.

One patient, Wendy, is quoted in the news material as saying: ‘Even though I won’t benefit from that research, it’s comforting to think that my experience with cancer will be helping others who are diagnosed in future.”

Cancer Research UK’s award-winning blog has a great post explaining all about stratified medicine, what it is and what it means.  If I can attempt a lay definition, the difference between normal medicine and stratified medicine is the difference between randomly shopping in your local mall for a gift for someone, and making a trip to a particular shop for the perfect gift you know they have in stock.

There are parallels between this initiative and today’s launch of the new pamphlet ‘Your health records saves lives’ in that our participation as patients in new research initiatives or simply in sharing data are more often than not about improving our fellow citizens’ future health than our own.