Provision of Hypertension Case Finding Service Locally
Written by AlisonFreemantle on Friday 6th October 2023
Agreeing local referral pathways with GP surgeries for patients requiring same day appointments
CPSC has been contacted by Wessex LMC (Local Medical Committee) and been advised about concerns being relayed to the LMC from several GP practices about the very high numbers of patients being referred on a daily basis in connection with the Hypertension Case Finding Service (HCFS).
An important element of the service specification is the guidance to communicate with your local GP surgeries/PCNs to let them know that you deliver the HCFS and agree on what the local referral pathway is for patients who are advised to arrange a further consultation with their GP surgery.
As you are aware, the service specification requires the pharmacy to offer ABPM to patients with high blood pressure before the patient is referred to their GP surgery. We would strongly suggest that all pharmacies offering the HCFS review their SOPs and ensure you have a locally agreed patient referral process in place.
If you are using PharmOutcomes to capture the consultation, PharmOutcome will send a copy of the consultation and results to the surgery removing the need to send all results each week by email. However, each pharmacy needs to agree with the surgery how the surgery will be notified of any patients requiring a same day appointment.
A useful briefing from CPE can be accessed here: