The NHS in England is set to offer free finger-prick cholesterol tests at high-street pharmacies for the first time, as part of a national effort to reduce deaths from heart disease and stroke.<\/p>
The seven-minute checks will initially be available at participating pharmacies, allowing eligible people to walk in and have their cholesterol levels assessed. The scheme is aimed at identifying people at higher risk of serious cardiovascular conditions before they develop symptoms.<\/p>
People aged 40 to 84 will be eligible if they are not pregnant and have not had a blood test during the previous year. A small blood sample will be taken from the fingertip using a lancet and analyzed immediately at the pharmacy.<\/p>
Following the test, a pharmacist prescriber will discuss the results with the patient, provide lifestyle advice and assess whether further treatment may be appropriate. This could include medicines such as statins for people whose cardiovascular risk warrants treatment.<\/p>
Patients will receive a copy of their results by email and will also be offered a blood pressure check as part of a clinical consultation. Health officials hope the combination of checks will help people better understand and manage common risk factors for heart disease and stroke.<\/p>
The national rollout follows a pilot in north London involving 2,493 patients, conducted by Barts Health NHS Trust in collaboration with UCLPartners and Heart UK. Nearly 19% of those tested were identified as having a high risk of a heart attack or stroke within the following 10 years, with those patients offered advice and referred for treatment. At least 88 people subsequently started taking statins.<\/p>
Around 100 NHS pharmacies across England are expected to begin offering the checks during the first phase of the rollout this autumn. Officials say expanding the service through pharmacies could make cardiovascular screening more convenient and accessible, particularly for people who may not regularly visit a GP surgery.<\/p>
David Webb, chief pharmaceutical officer for England, said pharmacies could serve as an important first line of defense against serious illness by making cholesterol checks quicker and easier to access in local communities.<\/p>
The initiative forms part of the NHS\u2019s wider 10-year health plan to bring more healthcare services closer to where people live. Health officials hope earlier identification of high cholesterol and blood pressure will encourage timely lifestyle changes and treatment, helping prevent heart attacks and strokes.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The NHS in England is set to offer free finger-prick cholesterol tests at high-street pharmacies for the first time, as part of a national effort to reduce deaths from heart disease and stroke. The seven-minute checks will initially be available at participating pharmacies, allowing eligible people to walk in and have their cholesterol levels assessed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5301,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5299\/revisions\/5301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorsnewslive.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}