Know Your Numbers Week launches on Monday, running from 2-8 September, with the aim of finding those with undiagnosed and uncontrolled high blood pressure through home monitoring.
Run by Blood Pressure UK, the campaign is now in its 24th year of encouraging people of all ages to check their blood pressure in a drive to prevent heart attacks and strokes.
The charity estimates that 6 million people in the UK have high blood pressure but are unaware of it because there are no symptoms.
It says that every day in the UK, 350 people have a stroke or heart attack that could have been prevented.
The Know Your Numbers campaign aims to raise awareness of the risks of high blood pressure and educate people on how to check their own blood pressure without the need to visit the GP practice or pharmacist.
It has set up a home resources hub for people to visit and download a range of home blood pressure monitoring resources. It also explains what to do if the reading is considered high.
Around the country, ‘pressure partners’ are promoting the Know Your Numbers campaign.
Somerset is running a 24-hour blood pressure test-a-thon on 5/6 September at workplaces, supermarkets and shopping centres across the county.
The test-a-thon is being held as part of Somerset’s Take the Pressure off campaign, which aims to test an additional 3,000 people in the community by March 2025 in addition to the thousands being tested at GPs, community pharmacies and via self-test kits at libraries.
Since the campaign launched in March, it has already seen over 2,000 people in Somerset receive free blood pressure checks in community settings and workplaces.
Professor Trudi Grant, executive director of public and population health – a joint appointment between Somerset Council and NHS Somerset – said the aim of Take the Pressure Off was to test ‘as many people as possible’ in Somerset.
‘High blood pressure often has no symptoms, so it is thought that about 40,000 people in Somerset have high blood pressure but don’t know it,’ she said.
Over half of all strokes and heart attacks in Somerset are caused by high blood pressure.
