Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to improve the identification of people with undiagnosed hypertension.

It is estimated that around 29% of all people who have hypertension are undiagnosed. We are taking action to address this as part of the 10-Year Health Plan which outlines our intention to publish a Modern Service Framework for cardiovascular disease (CVD). This will identify the best evidenced interventions, set clear quality standards, drive innovation in CVD prevention and management, and reduce unwarranted variation.

We have invested heavily in hypertension case-finding for those over 40 in community pharmacies. As of August 2024, 7,641 pharmacies were actively delivering the service.

We continue to deliver the NHS Health Check programme in England which assess the top risk factors for CVD among people aged 40 to 74 years and this includes measuring blood pressure. For every 1.4 million NHS Health Checks delivered annually, there are over 340,000 cases of high blood pressure identified, which results in 40,000 diagnoses of hypertension.