NWL Primary Care Event
On Tuesday 27th August, colleagues from NWL primary care network spent the day visiting different practices across North West Leicestershire to offer health & wellbeing advice alongside free opportunist blood pressure checks.
Pharmacy technicians were joined by the social prescribers to highlight the fantastic work already being done across the area but to also promote the social prescribing link workers and the impact they can have on a patient’s journey.
The aim of the event was to;
- Highlight the importance of knowing your blood pressure and the impact this can have on your health and wellbeing
- Educate patients on the steps they can take to reduce blood pressure
- Sign post patients to support groups to improve health and well being
- Offer support and advice to patients and carers on financial, health and social issues
- Referral of patients with elevated blood pressure readings for further monitoring including referrals to community pharmacy for 24-hour blood pressure monitoring.
Out of the 37 patients seen by the pharmacy technicians for a blood pressure check, 4 of those patients required a same day referral to a GP following their blood pressure reading. Almost 50% of patients seen on the day required further monitoring of their blood pressure and were referred to local community pharmacies or advised to carry out further blood pressure readings for the next 7 days to be followed up by their GP practice. Patients were offered advice on diet and lifestyle with resources available from the British Heart Foundation along with financial and well-being support and resources from the social prescribing link workers.
Offering this service proved the value of the multidisciplinary team and the interventions made to these patients has reduced the risk of patients suffering cardiovascular events in future such as heart attacks and strokes. We hope to run more of these events in the near future to raise awareness of the importance of knowing your blood pressure.
