A Feasibility Study of the Impact on Blood Pressure Control of Supplementing Community Pharmacist Services With Structured Information on Blood Pressure and Its Treatment

Hypertension is a major health problem, however its control is unsatisfactory. One of the reasons for such a high prevalence of this disease includes poor patient compliance to treatment. Approximately 30 % of newly diagnosed hypertensive patients stop taking their blood pressure medication by six months and 50% by 12 months.

The UK government is keen to encourage community pharmacists to play an active role in participation of services that can improve patient adherence to their medications. The New Medicines Service (NMS) and targeted Medicines Use Reviews (MUR) are established services which fund community pharmacists to review and explain medicine use to patients, with hypertension a common condition for which advice is given within these schemes. Within these schemes, advice is verbal and unstructured, with no specific written information provided on drugs or the disease being treated.

This study aims to determine whether structured information provided to participants verbally and in writing by community pharmacists about blood pressure and current medicine(s) within NMS and targeted MURs will be retained and will be associated with improved hypertension control. Participants will be recruited from people eligible for NMS and MURs and attending community pharmacies.