Govt’s new health check plan for workplace

[GKaplan]

Is this genuine or a gimmick? Checking weight, blood pressure etc at work. Similar NHS schemes are already in place all over the country. One in Teesside has been running since 2009. Any NHS staff on here care to offer an opinion? Good idea or PR stunt.

Used to happen years ago. Two people would turn up and you could go and get you blood pressure checked. Then they’d tell you to book an appointment with your surgery if it was high.

Seemed a bit pointless to me. There are plenty of Pharmacies who offer these checks and I can’t see they can make it mandatory for people to participate.

Utter waste of money.

I also worry that work will get involved at 'encouraging' healthy living in their employees - I am very wary of work being involved in any way with people's medical decisions. I think workplaces already seem to think they own people body and soul whilst paying them minimum wage.

Already available at pharmacies, GPs etc.

It's calculation of QRisk which can be done yourself: https://www.nhs.uk/health-assessment-tools/calculate-your-heart-age

Treatment is to put even more people on lifelong statins/blood pressure medication in order to reduce strokes/heart attacks at population level. For individuals the calculation is much more complex and should consider side effects/compliance.

NICE estimates that under this new recommendation, on average, for every 1,000 people with a risk of 5% over the next 10 years who take a statin, about 20 people will not get heart disease or have a stroke because they take a statin.

So 980 people will be taking them for no reason, along with the side effects

Over an average 4 years of follow-up, a 5 mm Hg reduction in systolic blood pressure lowered the relative risk of major cardiovascular events by 10%. The risks for stroke, heart failure, ischaemic heart disease, and death from cardiovascular disease were reduced by 13%, 13%, 8%, and 5%, respectively.

So again, a fairly low risk reduction for a lifelong medication.

We used to have this in 2010.

Once a year everyone had a check of blood pressure, BMI, aerobic capacity, resting heart rate etc.

Anything out of kilter, they just flagged it up, and advised a trip to the GP or a review of eating/drinking/smoking habits. There was one check, however when the nurse found such an issue, she called an ambulance there and then.

I don't remember anyone objecting much. It was all private and generally regarded with good humoured tolerance.

Plain stupid. I remember when in pregnancy class the midwife was speaking about healthy weight and she herself was about size 45. Then and there I learnt what I have to know about so called professionals.

The other thing I remember is my daughter whose daughter is tall, skinny, small bum and thin legs but putting some weight on the tummy was sent a school letter in year 6 that her daughter is overweight lol. The girl looked seriously slim

They'll all be told to make a GP appointment for high BP. Actually more accurate to do it yourself over several days at home.
Same for weight, yet the waiting list for the weight management service is currently over 12 months,
Primary care will be even more inundated.

The weight management service's results aren't spectacular either:

BMJ Open: Outcomes of a specialist weight management programme :

NHS GCWMS achieved a 5 kg weight loss in 28% of participants at 12 months when the LOCF analysis is used. This equates to 24% of participants losing 5% of their body weight, because the mean weight was greater than 100 kg at baseline. When complete cases are considered, 54% of participants achieved at least 5 kg weight loss at 12 months. Overall, men achieved greater weight loss than did women. Those with very high initial weight (>150 kg) also did well with 48% of women and 41% of men losing 5 kg or more (38% and 26%, respectively losing 5%).

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/1/e003747