Home blood pressure tests improve patient health and mean less time is spent on unnecessary appointments, a study has found.

People with high blood pressure using the streamlined system – which sends data over the internet or via text message – had better results compared with patients receiving standard care.

Dr Jon Turvill, who trialled the system at the Harbours Medical Practice in East Lothian, said: “We’ve found that Scale-Up BP frees up time and gives us more accurate blood pressure data.

“It’s even more appropriate in light of covid-19 and we are pushing on to recruit more people.

“Knowing that we can prevent more heart attacks and strokes this way is a real plus factor and our patients like feeling supported without needing lots of trips to the health centre.”

High blood pressure is the biggest treatable cause of stroke and heart attack and is typically monitored by nurses in local practices. There are some 12 million of these appointments each year in the UK – 1.2 million of which take place in Scotland.

But not all doctors surgeries use the home monitoring devices, partly due to workload and because home results cannot always be seamlessly fed into their computer systems.

Researchers from the universities of Edinburgh and Edinburgh Napier worked with 3,500 patients across 75 GP practices in Lothian to devise a new integrated system that sends summaries of home readings to GPs.

They observed a bigger fall in blood pressure among people using the kits compared to those travelling to be monitored.

Trial participants also had nearly 20% fewer face-to-face appointments, compared to 11% with patients who were not on the initiative.

The award-winning system – known as Scale-Up BP – has now been adopted in 358 practices across 11 of the 13 NHS boards in Scotland.

It comes after a trial in Dundee last year where around 10,000 patients benefitted from monitoring their blood pressure from home.

Professor Brian McKinstry, GP and Professor of Primary Care eHealth at the University of Edinburgh, said: “We believe our new system could help GP surgeries adhere to social distancing during the covid-19 epidemic and will be of help to remote communities such as those in the Highlands and Islands.”

The study, which was supported by the Chief Scientist Office and the British Heart Foundation, was published in the journal PLOS Medicine.

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