Heartburn Health programme

Heartburn, indigestion or acid reflux symptoms are very common in the UK. The Heartburn Health programme aims to help improve care for people who deal with these challenges day to day. The programme will build a community of volunteers and allow experts to research issues like:

• how to manage symptoms and improve medication 
• how to find more serious health problems (for example cancer) early, when they are easier to treat

NHS England are supporting the University of Cambridge, Cambridge University Hospitals and Queen Mary University of London to invite people to take part in Heartburn Health.

By joining Heartburn Health, you can learn ways to look after your own health and support building a detailed picture of heartburn symptoms. New tests and treatments could help develop better ways to care for people with reflux, indigestion and other heartburn symptoms. By contributing to this research, you could help improve the lives of millions of people in the future.

NHS England has been asked to invite a random sample of people over the age of 18 to join Heartburn Health. This means you may receive an invite even if you do not currently receive treatment or medication for heartburn symptoms. Inviting people in this way allows anyone invited the chance to take part if they have symptoms, regardless of whether these are self-managed or being treated medically. 

Only contact details of the eligible participants are then securely sent to a trusted third party called iPlato, who send an SMS text invite on behalf of the Heartburn Health programme.

The contact details sent to iPlato are limited to name and mobile phone number and are only for the purpose of issuing invitations to join Heartburn Health.

No contact details have been shared directly with Heartburn Health. iPlato will delete all contact details received from NHS England within 30 days of receipt.

To help you recognise a legitimate SMS invitation, we have sent this using the NHS England sender ID 'NHSresearch'.

SMS messages from 'NHSresearch' will always include your name and will never ask you to confirm your personal details or ask for any passwords.

Messages from 'NHSresearch' may include a link but will always offer an alternative means to find out more, such as a suggestion to search for ‘NHS DigiTrials - Heartburn Health’.

For further information about how to spot phishing attempts, visit the National Cyber Security Centre website. 

To sign-up, you need to use the link in your SMS invitation, or find out more information about the programme. 

If you’ve already received your SMS invitation, you will not get another. You can choose to ignore this, and it will not have any effect on your future care.

If you haven’t received an SMS invitation and do not want one, you can find out more by using the button below. Here you will find more information about how data is used for research and how you can opt-out of receiving an invitation from NHS England on behalf of Heartburn Health.