Resistant Hypertension

Lord Patel Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

Looking to the future, obviously, one can only act on clinical guidance. Renal denervation, as I mentioned to my noble friend, is an emerging option for carefully selected patients at the moment, as the noble Lord said. What matters now is that evidence is emerging, and that is why it is being reassessed. We will not have to wait too long to see what the future will bring in this regard, but it certainly has a role to play.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I will refine the previous questions. Resistant hypertension occurs when the blood pressure does not respond to standard treatment of two, three or even four drugs—hence we call it resistant hypertension. The reason why the renal system is involved is because the sympathetic nervous system acts between the kidneys and the brain. That controls vasodilatation and the production of hormones that raise the blood pressure. By denerving the renal system, which are nerves on the arteries of the kidneys, you can cut out one of the nervous system’s interactions between kidneys and the brain. What is important, therefore, is that people who suffer from resistant hypertension are treated by specialists at a specialist centre that considers denervation as one of the options, because it is not always the only answer. Therefore, does the Minister agree that people with resistant hypertension should be treated in a specialist centre?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I certainly would agree with that. Indeed, those who are diagnosed with resistant hypertension—and the noble Lord has, as ever, outlined how that is defined in a far better way than I could have done—can be referred by their GP to secondary care hospital hypertension services, so, to answer the point made by the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Evans, that does mean in-depth investigations and expert management. The House can be assured of that.