To not want take my own blood pressure for GP appointment

[user1471593137]

Is this a thing now? I have a telephone appointment next week and have been asked to sort my own BP reading before.

I suffer from the opposite of white coat syndrome. Also i find the digital machines really painful and they leave my crying. Much prefer a doctor doing it manually.

But my doctors appointments are all telephone still. We dont gave any nurses either.

Our GP practice supplies a free machine and uses the system below. Once a month I get a text from an APP called Florence reminding me to read my BP am and pm; I text back the readings and Flo records and monitors it. The BP nurse at the [practise monitors the readings. I can adjust my lifestyle to keep my BP at a level that doesn't alarm FLO, and just that little reminder alone has resulted in better readings

www.calsayseat.co.uk/clinics-and-services/florence/

so much easier (and safer) than going to the surgery.

You probably just need a bigger cuff size.

Of course I have a thermometer. But I’ve never in my life been asked to take my own BP. If that’s the way it’s going, ok, but we should be told if we’re now being expected to have a monitor at home. I’ve never seen this suggested before.

Some surgeries (like mine) has a machine in the waiting room you can pop in and use.

The nurse did mine at an over 50s wellbeing check. It was fine. Once out, I did it on the waiting room's machine and it was astronomically high, so much so I queried the discrepancy. I was advised by the nurses the machine was always out of kilter and to ignore that reading

It's another way for doctors to get out of seeing patients isn't it?

At my GP, (Scotland) home BP monitors and phone consults are just two of the ways they make the practice more efficient, so that people who really need face to face Dr or nurse appointments can get one. It's a more efficient use of staff time AND patients time.

We both prefer GP phone consults for matters that are just an exchange of information/advice; its at a time to suit us , at home. If anything arising from the phone chat needs F2F look-see or physical exam, it's immediately offered.

. I text my home BP monitor results to the system which is also monitored by the GP practice.

Our surgery has a BP machine in a booth you shove your arm into. Is that what they mean?

I do it at home after buying a machine but I'm not keen on it, I follow the instructions but I'm never sure the cuff is on right

I bought a BP monitor and just send the results to the GP surgery on one of these electronic forms. It's very straightforward and simple.

My machine recommends the end of the cuff about 4-5cm above the elbow joint.
It took me a bit of practise. The first readings indicated I was about to expire. Fair worrying, too!

@thebellagio

This is exactly the type of thing that SHOULD be done at home. It’s quick and easy and it frees doctors up to see people with other needs that can’t be treated at home. And if your blood pressure reading shows you need to see an HCP, you’ll be further along the pathway than the initial appointment.

But why? It has never EVER been done at home before the pandemic. Why NOW, is it so utterly VITAL that blood pressure is done at home by the patient, with their own machine that they have to purchase themselves?

What next? Doing your own blood tests and popping the blood into a vial and posting them to the GP? Getting your own stethoscope to check your heart rate? Getting a canula and a drip to rehydrate yourself if you've had a tummy bug?

Not everyone finds it so easy to do things like taking their own blood pressure, and if the OP wants a nurse to do it, then she should be allowed to have a nurse do it. If some people (like you clearly, and some others on here) are able to do it at home, then bingo! NHS time and money saved. Not everyone wants to do it themselves, and some can't do it.

So they should be entitled to get it done FOR them by a HCP. (Or if they have one, the little pod in the surgery that has a blood pressure machine, to enable people to do it without waiting for a HCP.) No-one should be forced - or expected to get their own blood pressure machine to do it themselves at home!

All this putting people off going to the GP when the patient would prefer to see a GP or HCP face to face really boils my piss tbh. Sick to death of 'covid' being used as an excuse now, for slack service, and brushing people off. Yes yes yes, some GP practices are run ragged yada yada, but not ALL are, and there is definitely an element of brushing people off because they CBA. And it has all stemmed from the Covid Pandemic. It's made some NHS services lacklustre, slack, and mediocre.

For those that can't do it. Fine.
For those that 'don't want to'. Fine too.
I can sit face to face and do all the blood pressures you want , but bear this in mind when you then have to wait several weeks for your smear or your child's immunisations.
The first thing I'll do if someone's BP is high in clinic is ask them to do home readings. Either that or they have to return twice more to recheck it as one raised surgery BP reading is unreliable and we don't want to deny or initiate prescriptions unnecessarily.
It's nothing to do with CBA. It's maximising our increasingly limited resources.

I think its irresponsible. I was told to buy a home monitor but havent found one that the measurements say will fit, when I told them that they were going to offer me the one to use for 24 hours except that 2 nurses and then the doctor couldnt get it to give a reading

The problem with the wider cuffs for big arms is that they are also longer so cover over my elbow.

There is no way Im going to try to manage this at home, the prices were quite expensive too. They can barely get the thing to fit and measure properly in the surgery without lots of faffing and re fitting and shift it round. I would be unable to do this with one hand myself

@WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps it has been asked for pre pandemic.
Our good nurse suggested it and the practice would accept readings. It saves time.
There's no reason for the buggers to weigh me or measure my height.

We are actively trying to reduce the number of HCA and nurse appointments used just for BP and weight checks as we’re under so much pressure. Also when I do pill checks if someone supplies their BP and weight I can do it over the phone which tends to be more convenient all round. I think this is sensible but it's interesting given that until very recently GPs (following NICE guidelines) couldn't possibly prescribe things like the pill without a weight check. I've weighed the same for 10 years, BMI is about 20, and had to have a weight check 4 weeks after a previous one. I don't think I could even physically have put on enough weight in that time to push me over the threshold for the medication. It's frustrating when the message changes when we used to be told in no uncertain terms how wrong we were if we challenged that very thing.

I was advised to buy my own BP monitor and take regular readings at home BEFORE the pandemic.
This was to find out whether the medication I'd just started was sufficient in bringing down high BP before having my cataract operation. If the medication hadn't worked I'd have missed out on my op and been put to the back of the waiting list.
Since I do suffer from a bit of white coat syndrome and couldn't keep taking time off work to go to GP for readings it made sense.
It cost about £23 and Ive not had any issues taking readings with it even though I am obese.

It makes me laugh. 2 years ago it seemed like everyone on MN rushed out to buy a sats monitor because of Covid. Nobody batted an eyelid.

Now ask them to invest in a machine if they’re going to need to do it regularly, use a relatives or visit a pharmacy to do it themselves and it’s OUTRAGEOUS.

This is the future of the NHS folks, get used to it.

When demand is as outrageous as it is after COVID, and is likely to remain, our threshold for 'risk' has been raised.
I will now rely on a patient's own weight over the phone to calculate BMI for a pill check for example, and explain the reasoning of its importance and document our discussion.
They are therefore making an informed choice as to whether to lie to me.
I wouldn't have done this two years ago, but without adapting how we practice with such increased demand, patients will simply wait longer and longer to be seen including those quite poorly.

I have an Omron and it's really good and easy to use. There's also a smartphone app that collects the readings and records a history of them.

Agree that blood pressure and weight checks are a waste of appointment time IF the practice has
an automated BP machine and a set of scales in the waiting room and/or an attached pharmacy with the above. Many many people aren’t able to take their own with an automated machine (I know people who got their pulse and blood oxygen confused on finger pulse ox meters- no you haven’t got a blood oxygen percentage of 120).

If it’s an ongoing issue then yes it’s reasonable to buy your own- I got a proper sphyg and stethoscope in pregnancy to do my own (tricky but doable and more accurate than the wrist things). Plus urine dip sticks. People do need to take some responsibility for their own health.

My husband was given one free from the surgery to monitor his blood pressure from home.

Saves him travelling, potential exposure to covid, etc and gets a more accurate reading at home.

Mine do this now. I now need it done for a prescription review once a year. I usually ask the nurse to do it but last time the Doctor told me to buy a machine and do it myself and let them know....

There is no pharmacy near me that does tests any more. They used to but now just want to sell you a machine!!

Really, what is the big deal about taking your own blood pressure. What is so wrong with freeing up healthcare professionals to do more useful consults. Can't understand this mentality that the NHS somehow owes it to you. Buy a twenty quid machine and get on with it.

Twenty quid for some people is a big deal.

For those that say they 'can't afford', then ok we bring them in.
I would estimate 95% of people say they can buy or borrow a machine. So completely not unreasonable to ask.