The practice is asking all patients who have been diagnosed as having raised blood pressure (hypertension) to consider obtaining their own automatic blood pressure device where possible, for use at home. It is becoming increasingly common practice for patients to be taking control of their health monitoring, and in these times of staying alert and social distancing, it is becoming even more popular and important in some cases.
Home blood pressure readings have several advantages over those done at the surgery. Quite apart from convenience, and the advantage to people who are vulnerable from COVID-19, home readings are more representative of one’s true blood pressure as this avoids the common problem of falsely raised readings done at the surgery, so called ‘white coat hypertension’.
Blood pressure monitors can be purchased from £10 from most pharmacies, larger supermarkets or household retailers. We do not recommend any particular brand or model, but we recommend that it is UK approved by the British and Irish Hypertension Society – their list can be found at https://bihsoc.org/bp-monitors/for-home-use/
If you would like us to send you a hard copy of the list, please contact the surgery and we will be happy to post it to you.
For further information about taking your own blood pressure including a monitoring sheet for recording your blood pressures, please visit our useful documents page.