ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE
Heart checks to be available at high street pharmacies
By Laura Donnelly
SHOPPERS are to be offered on-the-spot NHS heart checks to detect signs of killer conditions.
High street pharmacies will be overhauled under a plan to prevent up to 150,000 heart attacks and strokes within a decade.
England’s most senior doctor said the new approach would be a “game changer”, helping to identify risks far earlier, with advice on lifestyle overhauls, as well as targeted medication. Next month, chemists will begin rolling out the “rapid detection service”, which will include checks on blood pressure and cholesterol levels, along with mobile electrocardiograms to spot irregular heartbeats. If successful, it will be extended to every pharmacist in the country by 2022.
Pilot schemes have seen some types of strokes fall by a quarter.
Pharmacists will be expected to advise on exercise and diet, with results passed directly to GPs, who can prescribe the right medication.
Prof Stephen Powis, NHS England medical director, said: “Heart disease and strokes dramatically cut short lives, and leave thousands of people disabled every year, so rapid detection of killer conditions through high street heart checks will be a game-changer.”
The plans, launched to coincide with the world’s biggest heart conference, follow proposals to scrap “one size fits all” health MOTs at GP surgeries.
In future, GPs will be expected to increasingly target checks on those thought to be at greatest risk, due to their medical and genetic history, while routine screening tests are offered by pharmacists.
Heart attacks, strokes and circulatory diseases account for 160,000 deaths in the UK every year.
Speaking at the European Society for Cardiology (ESC) conference, in Paris, Professor Bryan Williams, author of its guidelines on disease prevention, said: “Heart disease and stroke remain the most important cause of premature death. The key is early detection of those at risk. Doing this is a way that is convenient for the public, not having to wait for a GP appointment.”
Dexter Canoy, clinical epidemiologist at the University of Oxford, said: “We need ways to target the people who aren’t seeing their GP regularly, middle-aged men who think they’re healthy but haven’t been checked.”
The checks are part of a £13 billion five-year contract for community pharmacists to expand their roles.
More than 100 pharmacies in Cheshire and Merseyside have begun offering blood pressures screening services under a local initiative backed by the British Heart Foundation.
Pilot schemes in Lambeth and Southwark in South London identified more than 1,400 patients suffering from atrial fibrillation – an irregular heart rhythm – who should have been taking blood thinning drugs, but were not. In total, 1,300 of the patients have now been put on the medication, leading to a 25 per cent reduction in the rate of strokes linked to their heart condition.
Keith Ridge, England’s chief pharmaceutical officer, said: “This new contract makes the most of the clinical skills of local pharmacists and establishes pharmacies as local health hubs.”
Simon Gillespie, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation, said: “Reaching more people and encouraging them to check their blood pressure, working with them to lower it where necessary, will play a critical role in saving lives.”
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