About the Community Pharmacy Blood Pressure Checks Service

This new service reflects NHS strategy to increase Primary Care capacity.

It has two components….

1) Case Finding – this is really a ‘Public Health’ intervention involving pharmacy teams inviting members of the public to have a free blood pressure check.

Eligible patients should generally be over 40 years old and not have a previous diagnosis of high blood pressure [hypertension]

This service is designed to spot hypertension earlier than it might otherwise be detected, because usually patients do not experience any untoward symptoms if their blood pressure has increased above what is normal and healthy.

2) Supporting GP Practices with routine Blood Pressure Checks

Patients with high blood pressure and various other long-term conditions need to be routinely reviewed, but often they cannot attend surgery appointments to have their measurements taken, for example due to the hours that the patient works. Now the surgery can invite the local pharmacist to perform the check at a more convenient time and to report the results back to the surgery.