Surrey Heartlands CCG launches remote blood pressure monitoring

Surrey Heartlands Clinical Commissioning Group has launched a remote monitoring service allowing patients to monitor their blood pressure at home.

The digital service, BP@Home, has been launched with Inhealthcare and aims to help to reduce the need for emergency hospital admissions and GP appointments, as well as save clinical staff from hours of admin.

Using a device provided by the NHS, patients are asked to record blood pressure and heart rate readings twice a day. These readings are analysed by Inhealthcare, who will also calculate averages, upload the readings on to GP systems and alert healthcare workers should any readings be concerning.

Dr Jagjit Rai, partner at St David’s Family Practice in Stanwell, said: “I have been involved with setting up the long-term condition remote monitoring service in North West Surrey, and I’m delighted with the results of our pilot.

“We have demonstrated that patients are happy to monitor their conditions from home, and when they do, they not only develop a better understanding of their condition, but feel empowered to manage it better through remembering to take their medication and making lifestyle choices.

“This will lead to better preventative care for our patients, and also reduce the burden on GP practices as we will receive the patient’s results electronically rather than having to see them each time. This should result in better health for our patients, fewer patients needing emergency care, and it frees up valuable appointments for more acute patients. We are now moving ahead with rolling out the BP@Home service across a greater number of practices in Surrey Heartlands with support from NHSX.”

Patients have multiple options for how to submit their readings – including email, SMS, via an app or over the phone – ensuring the service is fully inclusive. In addition, the service provides feedback and helpful advice to patients, such as to test themselves again or to contact NHS 111 or their clinical team if there is any cause for concern.

Automating tasks in this way will save healthcare professionals many hours of admin.

Bryn Sage, chief executive of Inhealthcare, added: “This service shows the real benefits of remote patient monitoring in action – improving health outcomes for patients, creating capacity within the NHS and enabling preventative care. We are delighted to be working with Surrey Heartlands CCG to drive innovation in healthcare and deliver personalised services to people across a large population area.”

Surrey Heartlands has previously worked with Inhealthcare to roll out the Oximetry at Home remote monitoring service for Covid 19 patients. Its introduction of the blood pressure monitoring service mirrors that of NHSX, who this week announced it was purchasing 220,00 devices for at-risk patients to monitor their blood pressure at home.