Last updated: 24 September 2026
Please read this before you order. It explains exactly what this service is, what it is not, and what you are taking responsibility for.
We give you laboratory data. That is the whole service.
We arrange for an accredited laboratory to test your blood, and we send you their report.
We do not read your results. Not before they reach you, not after.
There is no doctor’s comment, no clinical summary, no traffic lights, no “this looks fine” or “you should look at this”. You receive the laboratory’s report as issued, with the laboratory’s own reference ranges, and nothing else.
This is deliberate. Reading a blood result properly takes your history, your medications, your symptoms, and often examining you. A company emailing you a report cannot do any of that honestly, so we do not pretend to. It also means the responsibility for what you do with your results is entirely yours.
Who this service is for
This service suits you if you:
- know which markers you want and why
- already work with a clinician, coach, or practitioner who will look at your results
- are monitoring something you already understand
- are comfortable researching and acting on your own health data
It is not suitable if you:
- have symptoms you are worried about — see a doctor, not a website
- want someone to tell you what your results mean
- are expecting a health screen or a diagnosis
- would find an unexplained abnormal result distressing
If you are in that second group, that is completely reasonable — but you will be better served by a provider that includes clinical review, and we would rather say so than take your money.
What a blood test cannot do
Normal results do not mean you are healthy. They mean the markers you selected fell within a population reference range on the day your sample was taken.
A blood test is a snapshot, affected by hydration, recent food, recent training, sleep, time of day, illness, medication, and supplements.
Reference ranges are not targets. They describe roughly 95% of a reference population. A result slightly outside a range is often meaningless. A result inside a range can still be a problem for you. Only a clinician who knows your history can tell the difference.
We only test what you ordered. Nothing here screens for cancer, heart disease, or anything else you did not specifically select.
Preparing for your test
Getting this wrong is the most common cause of a misleading result.
Stop high-dose biotin at least 48 hours beforehand. Biotin — common in hair, skin and nail supplements and many nootropic stacks — interferes with a wide range of laboratory assays and can push thyroid and hormone results substantially in either direction. Check your labels.
Timing matters for some markers:
- Testosterone and prolactin: have your sample taken between 7am and 10am. These follow a daily rhythm and an afternoon sample is close to uninterpretable.
- Cortisol: must be collected 1–3 hours after waking. The rhythm is steep and a later sample cannot be read against the reference range.
- Prolactin: rest for 30 minutes first. Avoid vigorous exercise and sexual activity for 48 hours — both raise it.
- Glucose: fast for 10–12 hours, water only. This is the only marker on our menu that requires fasting — see the section below.
- Female hormones: cycle day matters. Unless told otherwise, days 2–5 are standard for FSH, LH and oestradiol; day 21 of a 28-day cycle for progesterone.
Should you fast?
Required for glucose. Recommended for everything else.
Only glucose is invalid on a non-fasted sample. But if you test the same markers more than once — and most of our customers do — the single biggest thing you control is whether the two samples were taken under the same conditions. An overnight fast and a 7–10am draw, every time, is what makes one number comparable with the next.
A few markers where it genuinely changes the number:
- Testosterone falls measurably after a glucose load, so a post-breakfast sample can read low.
- Iron varies through the day and rises after food or supplements.
- Triglycerides rise after a meal. The rest of a lipid panel barely moves.
- TSH reads slightly higher fasted than after eating.
And where it does not: ALT, AST and GGT, the full blood count, HbA1c, and creatine kinase are all unaffected by whether you have eaten. ALP is the liver marker that does move, rising after a meal. Cortisol needs the right time of day, not an empty stomach — a long fast can raise it.
Glucose is not available on a finger-prick sample, so a finger-prick order never requires fasting.
If you cannot fast, do not cancel your appointment. Everything except glucose is still valid. A fasted draw also makes fainting more likely, so if you have a history of that, eat and tell the person taking your sample.
What constrains the time of day is the post, not the fast. Your sample has to go into the post the same day it is taken, and that is the thing to plan around. A sample taken later in the day and posted in time is worth far more than a perfectly fasted one that misses the last collection.
Avoid heavy training for 48 hours. Intense exercise raises creatine kinase, liver enzymes, and inflammatory markers, and is a very common cause of an alarming-looking liver result in people who lift.
Stay hydrated. Dehydration concentrates almost everything.
Tell the person taking your sample about any medication or supplement you take.
How your sample is collected — five routes
Some of our tests can be collected by finger prick at home, and which ones is shown on each product page. Everything else needs a venous sample taken by a trained professional, and every venous order includes exactly one blood draw option, chosen in your basket before checkout.
| Route | What happens | What you are responsible for |
|---|---|---|
| Finger prick at home | We post your kit to you. You collect the sample yourself, at your kitchen table, in about 10 minutes. No appointment and nothing to arrange. | Following the kit instructions exactly, and posting the sample the same day. See the section below on what finger prick can and cannot do. |
| Clinic appointment | We post your kit to you and arrange an appointment at a partner clinic. A phlebotomist takes your sample. | Attending, taking the kit with you, and posting the sample the same day. Changes need 24 hours’ notice. |
| London walk-in centre | No kit is posted to you. The laboratory contacts you once your order is placed. You walk in to their own diagnostic centre on Wimpole Street any weekday, their team takes your sample, and it goes into the laboratory by their internal courier. | Getting there, and taking photographic identification — they will check it before taking your sample. Nothing to bring, nothing to post afterwards, and nothing to cancel. |
| Nurse home visit | A nurse attends your address, brings the tubes, and returns your sample directly to the laboratory. Nothing is posted, in either direction. | Being there. Cancellation inside 72 hours, or a missed visit, is charged at £65. |
| Your own arrangement | We post your kit to you and you arrange a venous draw yourself — a private GP, a practice nurse, a phlebotomy service, or a colleague if you work in healthcare. | Sample quality, labelling and timing. Whoever takes your blood needs to write their name and the date and time on the request form — that is a record of when the sample was taken, not an approval, and the laboratory needs it because some markers are only stable for a set number of hours after the draw. |
Whichever route you choose, your order stays open for 120 days from the date you place it. Within that time you need to have used your kit, attended the walk-in centre, or had your nurse visit. After that we can reopen the order for a £20 reactivation fee. Full detail is in our Shipping & Delivery Policy.
Check availability near you before you order. Not every GP surgery will take blood for a private test, and clinic coverage is not universal. If you are not sure, email us your postcode at contact@n1health.co.uk and we will tell you before you buy.
Posting your sample
This section does not apply if you booked a nurse home visit or the London walk-in centre — in both cases your sample reaches the laboratory without going through the post.
Collect your sample on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, and post it the same day it is taken, before that day’s final collection. A sample posted on a Friday sits in the postal system over the weekend and degrades. This is the single most common avoidable cause of a failed sample, and it applies to every order — finger-prick orders included.
Finger prick — what it can and cannot do
We sell finger-prick collection on every test where we think the result can be trusted, and we are open about where it is weaker than a venous draw.
It fails more often. Squeezing the finger dilutes the sample with tissue fluid and ruptures red cells; small volumes limit which tests can be run; and haemolysis is far more common on a capillary sample, which distorts several markers. We publish the failure rates here, before you buy, including the ones that cost us sales.
We refuse to sell some tests this way at all, including tests our laboratory would happily accredit for it, because the failure rate makes them a bad deal for you. The full blood count and HbA1c are the clearest examples — both need a second, different tube filled in the same sitting, and both fail far too often when collected by finger prick.
One of our profiles reports one fewer marker on a finger-prick sample, and we say so on the product page rather than in the small print.
Iron results are the most easily spoiled. Iron-oxide pigments in foundation, tinted moisturiser and some henna preparations contaminate the iron assay directly from your finger. Wash your hands thoroughly and use no hand cream or make-up on your fingers.
If you use a testosterone gel or cream, contamination from your own skin can produce a spectacularly wrong testosterone result. Wash the application area thoroughly and keep it well away from the collection site — this matters more on a finger prick than on a venous draw.
If any of that concerns you, choose the venous route. It is more reliable, and on some products it reports more.
Accreditation
Your samples are analysed by a UKAS-accredited medical laboratory, number 10641, accredited to ISO 15189:2022. Almost everything we sell sits inside that accredited scope.
Two markers do not: ESR and Zinc. The laboratory’s report will flag them as outside its UKAS scope. They are run by the same laboratory, by the same people, to the same internal standards — the flag reflects what UKAS has formally assessed, not the quality of the test. We say so on both product pages rather than letting the flag come as a surprise.
Results that need urgent attention
Occasionally the laboratory identifies a result that may need prompt medical attention, and tells us.
If that happens the laboratory tells us how urgently you need to be seen, and we contact you as quickly as we can to pass that on. It will be A&E today, a GP appointment within a day or 2, or a routine GP appointment. We will not tell you what the result was or what it means, because judging that is not ours to do.
We will not tell you what it means. We are not able to, and we will not guess.
Please understand the limits of this:
- This is not a monitoring service. We do not review your results.
- Not every abnormal result gets flagged. Only certain results trigger a laboratory alert.
- Never treat silence from us as reassurance. If you have not heard from us, that does not mean your results are normal.
- We can only reach you using the details you gave us. Please provide a mobile number you actually answer.
If you feel unwell
Do not wait for your results.
- NHS 111 — urgent but not an emergency
- 999 — chest pain, difficulty breathing, severe bleeding, sudden weakness or confusion, or any emergency
- Your GP — anything persistent or worrying
A blood test is not a substitute for being seen by someone.
Your responsibilities in one place
By ordering, you confirm that you:
- are 18 or over and ordering for yourself
- have chosen your own tests and are not relying on us for that choice
- understand you will receive no interpretation of any kind
- will follow the preparation instructions
- will collect your sample Monday to Thursday and, unless you booked a nurse home visit or the London walk-in, post it the same day it is taken
- will use your kit, attend the walk-in centre or have your nurse visit within 120 days of ordering
- will give contact details you monitor, including a mobile number
- will seek medical advice for any concern, rather than relying on this service
- understand this is not a diagnosis, not a screen, and not medical care
If anything here is unclear, email us at contact@n1health.co.uk before you order. We would much rather answer a question first than have you buy something that is not right for you.
N1 Health Group Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales. Company number 17398954. Registered office: 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ.