A recent study shows that optimising medicines for high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease patients living in East London could reduce lifetime hospital costs and prevent cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes.
CEG provided East London data for the study, which was led by Queen Mary health economists Runguo Wu and Professor Boby Mihaylova and funded by Barts Charity. The research estimates the lives and costs saved by optimising medications for blood pressure control (hypertension) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). It examines both a modest 10% improvement in prescribing and full optimisation of prescribing of antihypertensives and statins.
In the three inner east London boroughs of City and Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham (population ~1 million) there were 91,828 adults with hypertension and 23,723 people who had CVD (heart attack/angina, stroke or peripheral arterial disease).
The evaluation found that over five years, full optimisation of related medications would save an estimated:
Over the patients’ lifetimes, full optimisation would save:
Even a modest 10% improvement would have a major impact over the patients' lifetimes and reduce inequities:
Outside of the evaluation, primary care data analysed by CEG shows the pandemic has had a major impact on blood pressure recording and CVD management in general. In 2019, before the pandemic, the North East London region was performing better than London and England for blood pressure control. In 2020-21, most North East London areas have fallen below the London average.
A key element is training and assistance for in-practice pharmacists and practice teams. CEG is supporting this in North East London via several initiatives, including REAL-HEALTH Cardiovascular and the Redbridge CVD statin initiative. CEG’s tools and resources are available to NHS GP practices across North East London Clinical Commissioning Group with support from a dedicated primary care support team: