We know that across the world a billion people have high blood pressure and 10.7 million people die each year because of high blood pressure. The tragedy is that so many of these deaths are preventable by prevention, detection and effective treatment of high blood pressure.
Saturday 17 October was World Hypertension Day. With CVD being the largest cause of health inequalities, the Long Term Plan prioritises CVD prevention, and sets a minimum ambition of detecting 80% of people with high BP and effectively treating 80%. The recently released 2019/2020 QOF data on hypertension have been published by PHE on their fingertips ( and QMUL Clinical Effectiveness Group have led the production of helpful hypertension toolkits which have published on the UCLP website. We are lucky in this country that Dr Richard McManus of Oxford University Primary Care Department has pioneered research on remote monitoring of high BP. For all the PHE analysis, academic research and toolkits, implementation can only happen with effective local leadership. Again we have great examples of regional leadership groups in the South East and North. We also have great examples of ICS level leadership of CVD prevention especially in Cheshire and Merseyside, and in West Yorkshire and Harrogate.
To know more about the evidence based around hypertension and remote monitoring, you can follow @richardjmcmanus on Twitter and to keep up with national developments, and also our National Clinical Director for CVD Prevention on @Shahed__Ahmad both of whom use the hashtag #ZeroCVD.
Author: Dr Shahed Ahmad
