According to the British Heart Foundation analysis published on 22 June, nearly 100,000 more people with cardiovascular disease than expected have died since the start of the pandemic in England.
Malcolm Harrison, Chief Executive of the CCA said:
“The findings in this analysis are very concerning and demonstrate the devastating impact of cardiovascular disease. More needs to be done to identify and help people with cardiovascular disease. Part of the answer is making community pharmacy the first port of call for cardiovascular care.
Community pharmacy has already started to transform cardiovascular care through the Community Pharmacy Blood Pressure Check Service. In its first year, the sector delivered nearly 600,000 checks which prevented over 600 future heart attacks and strokes.
The CCA’s hypertension paper recently calculated that by 2026 community pharmacy will deliver 15m blood pressure checks, preventing 15,000 heart attacks and strokes. As ever the potential of the sector is underutilised.
The expansion of the blood pressure check service outlined in the Delivery Plan is a stamp of approval from Government. However, we believe that with investment, we can go further and faster. We envisage that community pharmacy could, over time, be the go-to-place for end-to-end management of cardiovascular disease.”