Blood Pressure: How Can We Do Better?
NHS England’s National Clinical Director for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention looks at the launch of a vital new resource:
An excellent new resource – Blood Pressure – How Can We Do Better? – has just been launched.
It has been developed by GPs, nurses and pharmacists working with partners including NHS England, Public Health England, the British Heart Foundation, the Stroke Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners.
It can be accessed at www.bhf.org.uk, and there is one for every CCG.
Each pack has one page of infographics that show how the CCG and local practices are performing in detection and management of high blood pressure, and show the potential for improvement. And there are two pages of practical key messages, written by fellow clinicians in primary care, that tell us how to we can improve care and outcomes for our patients … by doing things differently.
So why is this so important? Well, it’s a fact that high blood pressure affects more than one in four adults in England, and is one of the leading risk factors for premature death and disability.
Having high blood pressure is associated with half of all strokes and heart attacks. At the same time, we know that treatment is very effective – for every 10mmHg reduction in blood pressure, the risk of a life changing heart attack or stroke is reduced by 20%.
Despite this clear evidence of benefit from treatment, four in ten people with high blood pressure remain undiagnosed – that’s around 25,000 people in the average CCG who are unaware of their increased risk and not receiving treatment. And even when the diagnosis is made, treatment is suboptimal in four out of ten individuals, with their blood pressure not being controlled to the levels recommended by NICE.
Why are so many people undiagnosed and under-treated? Because although this may be core primary care, it is often not easy to do. For example, checking blood pressure may not take long and may well be clinical priority for GPs. But in the overburdened, complex world of general practice, it is often trumped by several other priorities that patients bring to their time pressured consultations.
This situation is not going to be improved by GPs working harder – we have no extra capacity at present. It will only be improved by doing things differently, and by making the system work better for ourselves and our patients. For example, by getting more systematic about audit in practices and CCGs so that we identify the missing and under-treated, by making better use of community pharmacists to diagnose and treat high blood pressure, by promoting more self-measurement and telehealth solutions, and by use of wider settings for blood pressure checking.
Blood Pressure – How Can We Do Better? shows how this can be done. The infographics highlight at a glance the opportunity for improved detection and management in every CCG. And the key messages identify some of the practical, real world steps that can be taken at CCG and practice level to improve detection and management of high blood pressure, while at the same time minimising the burden on general practice.
- Also see our news item ‘Opportunities for action around hypertension highlighted with new resource‘.