Thatcham surgery encourages blood pressure checks in a national drive

A surgery in Thatcham is encouraging blood pressure checks in a national drive.

The Burdwood Surgery is encouraging residents to contact their surgeries to get themselves checked.

Know your Numbers week, which was last week, was the country’s biggest blood pressure awareness event.

The annual event has so far meant 1.5 million people have had a free blood pressure check, according to Blood Pressure UK.

It says six million people in the country have high blood pressure and don’t know it, with 350 people each day having a stroke or heart attack that could have been prevented.

Volunteers at the Burdwood Surgery have already been running clinics at the weekends.

More information can be found at https://www.bloodpressureuk.org/know-your-numbers/

Patient services manager Clair Brown said: “Over the last few months our volunteer patient participation group have been running clinics in their own time during the weekend to take our patient’s blood pressure.

“These clinics were here at the surgery with Dan [Haines], our paramedic, onsite to deal with any possible high readings.

“We invited patients to book an appointment who had not had a recent reading to be able to update their records."

The Burdwood Surgery will be running more clinics in the future.