News Potential for additional 6,000 heart attacks and strokes owing to COVID-19 pandemic, researchers estimate Prescriptions of antihypertensives dropped sharply from March 2020, which could result in an additional 2,300 heart attacks and 3,500 strokes.…Published: 20 January 2023
News Draft NICE guidance says statins can now be considered for people at lower risk of cardiovascular disease The draft guidance advises prescribers to discuss how to manage all other modifiable cardiovascular disease risk factors before offering statin treatment.…Published: 12 January 2023
News A third of patients have high blood pressure under community pharmacy case-finding service NHS England has listed the service under a range of 'high-impact interventions' and says that pharmacies could carry out 2.5 million blood pressure checks in 2023/2024.…Published: 1 December 2022
News Incentive schemes behind inhaler and edoxaban switching targets should be scrapped, say MPs In a report on the future of general practice, MPs said it was clear the current target and incentive system "is not having the desired effect on outcomes".…Published: 21 October 2022
Feature ‘I could not wait to get back into clinical pharmacy and seeing patients’ Kate Jenkins, practice pharmacist, The Practice of Health, Barry, Vale of Glamorgan…Published: 6 October 2022
News Some patients switched to edoxaban without being properly informed, pharmacists say Exclusive: Primary care pharmacists have revealed that patients are being switched to edoxaban without being informed or when it is not clinically appropriate.…Published: 31 August 2022
News Statins should not be stopped in older people owing to their benefits, say researchers People with lower cardiovascular disease risk who stopped taking statins aged 80 years lost 73% of their potential benefit if they took them for the rest of their lives, a modelling study has suggested.…Published: 25 August 2022
News Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs linked with heart failure in patients with diabetes Researchers found that NSAID use in any period was linked with a 43% increased risk of subsequent hospitalisation for heart failure.…Published: 24 August 2022
Feature Edoxaban switching scheme: worth the risks? GP practices in England are being paid millions of pounds to switch up to a third of patients to edoxaban, currently the cheapest choice of anticoagulant for the NHS. However, switching is not always straightforward and there is speculation that patients will need to be switched again in the future.…Published: 27 July 2022
News Community pharmacies in England carry out more than 110,000 blood pressure checks in six months Community pharmacies also provided ambulatory blood pressure monitoring to nearly 5,000 patients.…Published: 23 June 2022
