Join the growing number of people taking simple action to help protect their heart by getting a free blood pressure check at a local pharmacy.
This week (2 – 8 September) is Know Your Numbers Week, encouraging everyone to get their blood pressure checked.
Your blood pressure is your body’s internal rhythm – it measures how hard your heart works. By regularly checking your blood pressure you can help identify if you are keeping within healthy levels or whether you need to take action to keep well.
Why is this important?
In our local area, across Enfield, Islington, Camden and Barnet, one of the biggest health risks we face is around heart health.
Nearly 1 in 4 deaths under 75 years are avoidable, i.e. from causes that could been prevented or treated, and having a good awareness of your blood pressure is vital.
Over a quarter (27%) of all UK deaths are due to cardiovascular diseases like coronary heart disease, heart attacks or strokes. High blood pressure is a major cause, but usually has no symptoms until it’s too late.
However, monitoring your blood pressure and knowing when there is a concern can ensure that you get the early help you need to keep healthy.
Take action now
To make sure you know your blood pressure numbers visit your local pharmacy as most pharmacies in our North Central London area now offer free blood pressure checks. If you can’t do it immediately in Know Your Numbers week then drop in as soon as you can afterwards, the service will continue to be there for you.
If you are over 40 years old with an existing diagnosis of high blood pressure pharmacies will also be able to provide you personalised advice.
We also want to make sure that those looking after our communities are themselves kept healthy so we have a wellbeing bus that travels to different care homes to provide health checks including blood pressure checks for care home workers who might not otherwise have time to visit a pharmacy.
Find out more
Learn more about what we are doing to help residents age well – read the case study on driving sustainability changes for heart in NCL (Age well section pages 13 -14).
You can also discover how we are working hard to improve all the health and care of people in North Central London in our North Central London Population Health and Integrated Care Strategy.