OBJECTIVE: This article discusses the evolution of pervasive healthcare from its inception for activity recognition using wearable sensors to the future of sensing implant deployment and data processing. METHODS: We provide an overview of some of the past milestones and recent developments, categorised into different generations of pervasive sensing applications for health monitoring. This is followed by a review on recent technological advances that have allowed unobtrusive continuous sensing combined with diverse technologies to reshape the clinical workflow for both acute and chronic disease management. We discuss the opportunities of pervasive health monitoring through data linkages with other health informatics systems including the mining of health records, clinical trial databases, multi-omics data integration and social media. CONCLUSION: Technical advances have supported the evolution of the pervasive health paradigm towards preventative, predictive, personalised and participatory medicine. SIGNIFICANCE: The sensing technologies discussed in this paper and their future evolution will play a key role in realising the goal of sustainable healthcare systems.