I go and do this stuff once per year. I think when you get to around 45 they get you to come in and do BP, weight, Bloods, Cholesterol, Bloods sugars etc. Everything has been fine, I'm a bit overweight, but nothing crazy. I just put it down to my supreme muscle mass and penchant for croissants.
Yeah it should be a yearly thing, I've no idea if that is because you reach a certain age (just read Piskies post confirming it is). I've got a blood pressure monitor and they do encourage people to do their own, I done mine only the other week, but I had to do it for a whole week this time, morning and night, then once I've got all the readings I email them over. I've done two seperate blood tests in recent weeks, both done within 30 min waiting time, so yeah like you I was impressed. I do know this is not the same everywhere, so hopefully those other areas will get worked on as well eventually. Everything is what I best describe as triage now, if you want to talk about medications, or they want to talk to you about medications, it's the pharmacist, depending on your GP's set up. It all seems to work quite well, it's removing all the work from GP's that other experienced professionals can deal with. Although the only bit where it falls down for me logistically it creates a lot of repeat work, but it's not much they can do about that, so for example if something additional is found wrong, you end up seeing your Doctor anyway, which was the case with me recently, but they can also deal with some stuff over the phone. I think the hope is if we can get all this stuff dealt with a doctors surgery level, it keeps people from going to A&E.
The only down side to all this, because I think there is one, especially with men, as BWood mentioned text messages, but that loses the personal touch, and some people probably really do need to go to the doctor and rarely do and I see barriers with in all this methodology - ones that could result in future complications. It's how you monitor keeping that balance and GP's ensuring that patients do go to them when needed and aren't fobbed off by receptionists, text messages and emails.
Think this was just because I’m new to the surgery as I’m nowhere near 45 thankfully. You’re right though there must be loads of men at high risk of something as overweight, drinkers/smokers, 45+ who could get something serious picked up early. Stopping the boats will free up capacity.
