We live in a state of perpetual health-checks. From government screening programmes to campaigns encouraging us to examine our breasts and testicles on a regular basis, scrutinising our bodies for signs of disease has become routine. We can buy DIY health kits to check our liver function, blood pressure or cholesterol, and are issued with a constant stream of official advice about how we can modify our diet and lifestyles to ward off disease and death.

But how scientific is the rhetoric of ‘healthy living’? How far do screening programmes and lifestyle advice actually help to improve our health? Is awareness raising about terminal illness a practical step in the fight against cancer - or does it rely on a superstitious notion that we can ward off disease through looking out for it? Have you wondered why an increasing proportion of the otherwise healthy population now seems to be suffering from vaguely-defined syndromes or disorders; why alternative medicine continues to do a roaring trade despite scientists continually disputing its medical benefits; and why middle-aged men with heartburn take themselves off to Casualty with suspected heart attacks?

Should we aspire to ‘wellness’; or is our obsession with healthy living creating a population of patients-in-waiting among the worried well, causing a drain on NHS resources and a bigger one on the human spirit. The session will be followed by a drink in the bar.