Community Pharmacy’s Encouraged to Provide Blood Pressure Monitoring

There is a new community pharmacy initiative where patients over 40 can be checked for high blood pressure and sent to a GP to confirm and diagnose if they have hypertension. The NHS said that “as of 31 December 2021, 3,938 community pharmacies have signed up to provide BP checks for the over 40s since the introduction of the service in October 2021”.

The NHS England, NHS Improvement, PSNC, and Department of Health and Social Care, have agreed to pay a maximum £1,800 to encourage the initiative. The funding will be approved and distributed if they achieve specific activity targets.

Community pharmacies that monitor and treat ABPM (ambulatory blood pressure monitoring) at least 5 times over a year may receive £1,000 to finance the specialist equipment. An extra £440 will be paid out to enable the initiative to be set up, with £15 for every person who gets their blood pressure looked at and £45 for every instance ABPM was used.

Alastair Buxton from the PSNC (Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee), explained that “a third of community pharmacies have already signed up to provide the service so soon after its launch.” Community pharmacies have “been keen to get commissioned for many years so we expect many more pharmacies will start to provide it over the next couple of months.”

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