NHS campaign to save lives from high blood pressure

Dispensing Assistant Sarah Manuel helps patients at Blackbrook Pharmacy in Taunton

More than a thousand people a year in the South West could be spared death if more patients with high blood pressure were treated, according to NHS figures.

The region has the highest proportion of people in England with untreated hypertension, with only 65% of adults seeing a GP about their condition.

The NHS said 1,330 heart attacks and strokes could be prevented each year, if the national target of 77% was met.

Stephen D'Arcy had a stroke in 2020 and said he was living in a nightmare.

The stroke left him paralysed on his right hand side.

As a smoker, he was at greater risk of high blood pressure, and had been living with it at the time of the stroke, but did not realise it.

Stephen D'Arcy from Yeovil, had a stroke in 2020

Mr D'Arcy, 42, from Yeovil, said it has had a devastating effect on his life.

"You realise how much you miss your limbs," he said.

"You miss your memory, you miss how to work things out. You miss everything you took for granted.

"Everyone says 'you will get better', 'your speech is improved', 'your walking has improved'. I am recovering but all I am doing is building a path inside a nightmare."

Mr D'Arcy is now supporting NHS Somerset, together with Somerset Council, in their biggest ever campaign 'Take the Pressure Off' with the aim of testing thousands of residents to increase awareness and early detection of high blood pressure.

"It's about getting people to buy a blood pressure unit,," he said.

"It's all you've got to get. And trust me, not doing it and all of sudden maybe having a stroke, is not worth the risk, not at all."

The number of patients being treated in the South West has gone up during the last quarter

The latest NHS figures for September show the South West is one of the worst places in the country when it comes to making sure patients like Mr D'Arcy do not slip through the net, with untreated hypertension.

The South West and South East managed 65% of adults with hypertension through medication or lifestyle via their GP.

The North West, London and East of England achieved 66%, the Midlands 67% and North East Yorkshire is the best with almost 70%.

To meet the national target of 77% an additional 88,938 people would need to treated in the South West.

NHS statisticians have worked out that this would prevent around 533 heart attacks and 797 strokes, saving the NHS around £15m.

But they stress performance is improving and in the quarter to September 2023, the South West treated 5,580 more patients for hypertension than the previous quarter.

Dr Tim Norbury said the real problem is in getting patients diagnosed

GP's, like Dr Tim Norbury from Taunton Vale Healthcare, are given financial incentives to manage patients with high blood pressure.

But the Senior Partner said the real problem is in getting patients diagnosed in the first place.

"There's a tremendous unmet need," he said.

"The estimation is somewhere between 50 and 80 thousand patients are currently in Somerset with hypertension and they don't yet know it.

"So we would really encourage everyone to get your blood pressure checked.

"If you are over 40 and you are not already being monitored by a doctor you can quickly and easily get your blood pressure checked by going into any pharmacy."

Sarah Manuel said patients can be leant a blood pressure device to keep an eye on their readings

Somerset is now introducing a payment system to incentivise pharmacists to carry out blood pressure checks.

The Integrated Care Board said 98% have signed up, including Blackbrook Pharmacy in Taunton.

Dispensing Assistant Sarah Manuel said that once a high reading has been taken, patients can be leant a blood pressure device.

"We send them a text message with a link and they can send the reading back to us and we can get a better history," she said.

This information is then shared with the patient's GP, if they consent to it.

'More to do'

In 2019/20 more than 70% of high blood pressure patients were being treated in the South West. But the Covid pandemic caused that figure to drop to around 50%.

The deputy regional director for public health in the Southwest, Sarah Blackmore, said clearly there is "much more to do".

When asked if she thought there was a link with a decline in face-to face GP appointments during Covid she replied: "I don't think we can say that firmly.

"I think what we can say is, where are we now? And where do we want to be heading?

"And certainly in terms of where we want to be heading and where we are now our primary care clinical colleagues are working incredibly hard to ensure that people are diagnosed with high blood pressure, for example, at the earliest possible opportunity."