Around a third of adults living in mid and south Essex have high blood pressure. High blood pressure can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke. Certain members of the population are known to be at greater risk than others.
As part of a successful bid, the Integrated Care Board was selected to be a trailblazer as part of a national pilot to test out how residents can improve their health outcomes through self-monitoring their blood pressure at home. The rollout supports the NHS Long Term Plan ambitions to prevent up to 150,000 heart attacks, strokes, and dementia cases over the next 10 years.
Evidence from various studies has shown that self-care and remote monitoring of blood pressure versus normal care in primary care is very effective. Benefits include being good value for money and saving time, but, most importantly, saving people’s lives and helping to reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke.
49,100 people living in mid and south Essex are now part of this programme. National research shows that for every 50,000 patients monitoring their blood pressure at home we can prevent up to 500 heart attacks and almost 750 strokes over a period of five years.
The pilot was so successful that we now have over 19,000 monitors with people in the community and 80% of our GP practices taking up the programme in mid and south Essex. Locally, the hope is to prevent 500 heart attacks and 750 strokes over the course of five years. This couldn’t have been possible without strengthened partnership working across local health and care organisations and staff working hard behind the scenes to make it easier to prevent crisis and keep people healthy and independent, for as long as possible.
Patients wishing to participate in BP@home can do so through discussion with their GP surgery or participating pharmacies. During #KnowYourNumbersWeek dedicated pressure stations will be set up across mid and south Essex and details will be available through the campaign information.