Council staff urged to carry out health checks by NHS bosses
A three-year plan to help sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs) reduce the number of heart attacks and strokes has been unveiled today.
New analysis by Public Health England (PHE) reveals that at least 14,000 strokes and more than 9,000 heart attacks could be prevented over the next three years with better detection and management of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and atrial fibrillation.
NHS England and PHE have written to the 44 STPs drawing attention to the prevention opportunities in their local areas. This includes increasing access to blood pressure testing in the workplace and using the wider local authority workforce to carry out health checks.
Duncan Selbie, chief executive of PHE, said: ‘High blood pressure is the invisible killer. We want people to be as familiar with their blood pressure numbers as they are with their credit card PIN or their height.
‘Too many people are still living in poor health and dying from a largely preventable disease. The good news is that we know how most heart attacks and strokes can be avoided. Scaling up CVD prevention locally is a major part of reducing the overall burden on individuals, families and the NHS, and will help us ensure a person’s health is not defined by where they live.’
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