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General Practitioners should encourage patients with hypertension to monitor their blood pressure at home and use those readings in their day-to-day care, recommend a team of experts writing in The Lancet.

blood pressure monitor

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

From the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Birmingham, the researchers report on a trial showing that when GPs base their medication adjustments on regular blood pressure readings taken by patients at home, blood pressure is significantly lower after 12 months when compared with those who are managed exclusively in the clinic.

The NIHR-funded trial involved more than 1000 patients with poorly-controlled blood pressure, recruited through 142 general practices in England.

Find out more (University of Oxford website)

Find out more (Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences website)