It’s quick, easy and free for eligible at your local pharmacy. We are also sharing tips on what to do if you need to improve your blood pressure.
Blood pressure is the strength with which your blood pushes on the sides of your arteries as it is pumped around your body.
Raised blood pressure, otherwise known as hypertension, is the number one cause of pain and disability in Greater Manchester. It can increase your risk of experiencing a serious health problem like a heart attack, stroke or dementia. High blood pressure usually has no symptoms and millions of people will be living with raised blood pressure without knowing it.
The only way to know if you have high blood pressure is to get a blood pressure test. Healthy adults over 40 are encouraged to have their blood pressure checked every five years.
If you’re at an increased risk of high blood pressure, you should have your blood pressure checked more often, ideally once a year. The easiest way to get your blood pressure checked is at your local community pharmacy. It’s free if you’re over 40 and eligible and you don’t need an appointment.
You can find your local community pharmacy here.
Knowing your blood pressure is the first step to doing something about it. If you find that you need to improve your blood pressure, we have lots of simple life changes, such as eating a healthy, balanced diet, reducing alcohol intake and managing stress. If needed, your GP can prescribe you medication which also work well alongside these changes.
Luvjit Kandula, chair of Greater Manchester Primary Care Provider Board, said: “Having high blood pressure often has no symptoms but if left untreated, can lead to fatal heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease and vascular dementia.
“Our primary care teams are hard at work in pharmacies and GP practices, as well as going into the heart of communities with mobile sites and workshops at local events, to give people easy access to blood pressure checks. If you’re over 40, popping into your local community pharmacy for this free and easy test or taking advance of the pop-clinics in your community could be life-saving.
“When we launched the Primary Care Blueprint for Greater Manchester, the plan for how we will meet the physical and mental needs of our residents over the next five-years, a big part of our vision was to focus on prevention and detecting ill health at the earliest opportunity. Even if you feel healthy, you could have high blood pressure, so getting checked means you can make simple changes which could have a massive impact on your long-term health.”
Case study
The Wigan Central and North Wigan Primary Care Network (PCN), which supports local GP practices to deliver health services to patients in Wigan, regularly runs health check clinics in local community and sport centres.
The PCN teams up with Be Well Wigan, which provides leisure and wellbeing services inthe area, to carry out blood pressure checks at pop-up clinics at Be Well Wigan leisure centres.
Anne Humphreys is a Quality Nurse Manager for Wigan Borough Federated Healthcare, she said: “Patients really like it because it fits in with their lifestyle. We offer appointments when it’s convenient for them and we’re also really flexible, so patients can just drop-in to have a health a check.”
In February this year, a 43-year-old resident went along to have his blood pressure checked while he was at his local leisure centre waiting for his young daughter to finish her gymnastics class.
He had felt reasonably healthy and played football regularly. However, his blood pressure was found to be so high, that staff at the pop-up clinic advised him to go to A&E, where he was given medication. The hospital also found his high blood pressure was causing a swelling in one of his arteries, which was at serious risk of bursting and could potentially be fatal.
Anne said: “The man did say that he would never have gone to his GP to have his blood pressure checked. That is why so important that we can offer residents different ways of accessing health care – it can potentially save lives.”
Top tips for healthy blood pressure
