Polymers are one of the most applicable and clinically relevant materials for constructing nanomedical systems. These systems are expected to have a future in the clinic; nanomedical constructs will have wide implications for how we treat and diagnose society's most complex diseases, such as cancer, inflammation and genetic disorders. This update focuses on describing the fundamentals of controlled polymerisation techniques and methods for constructing advanced polymer architectures to be used in polymer based nanomedicine. This growing field is reviewed, which uses recent advances in polymer chemistry and conjugation techniques to construct advanced nanoparticles. One focus of this update is to give examples of recent developments in drug delivery, ligand targeted therapy and diagnostic imaging techniques. One section is devoted to the latest developments in nanomedicine - theranostic systems - which combine therapeutic delivery with diagnostic imaging capabilities in the same device. Such systems will play a crucial role in developing personalised medicine.