A “recent evaluation” of a pilot scheme involving the Community Pharmacy Hypertension Case Finding advanced service found that a third of patients had a high blood pressure reading, NHS England has said.

In a paper published last week on “high impact interventions” to tackle cardiovascular disease, NHSE said that 114 patients in the pilot “received high or very high BP readings,” of which 40 went on to use ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM).

“A third of those people who had an ABPM following a high reading in the pharmacy still had a high reading following ABPM,” it added. 

The service launched as a national advanced service in October 2021, with health minister Neil O’Brien recently revealing that by August this year over 8,000 pharmacies had signed up to deliver it and over 400,000 BP checks had been carried out.

NHSE estimates that in 2023-23 community pharmacies “could carry out 2.5 million BP checks” and increase hypertension diagnosis rates, leading to higher treatment rates and “reducing pressure” on general practice.