High blood pressure: practice team information

Consultations

Table 1 shows the estimated number of consultations (per 1,000 patients registered with a practice) with either a general practitioner or practice nurse for high blood pressure during the financial year 2008/09. Overall, there were 199.8 consultations per 1,000 males and 228.4 per 1,000 females. Note: one individual may have any number of contacts. 

The contact rates increase significantly with age for both males and females.

Table 1: Consultations with the practice team (per 1,000) by age and gender, 2008/09

	Males	Females
24 years and under	0.4	0.7
25-34 years	14.8	12.2
35-44 years	76.3	55.8
45-54 years	222.7	192.9
55-64 years	477.2	473.8
65-74 years	706.2	752.3
75 years and over	732.0	779.0
All ages	199.8	228.4

Source: Practice Team Information, ISD Scotland. 

Note:

Based on ISD's Read Code Grouping (RCG) 'Hypertension'.  These figures are based on 58 practices across Scotland which collected and submitted Practice Team Information data for year ending March 2009.

Consultation type

In 2008/09, around 487,000 consultations for high blood pressure were with general practitioners and 682,000 were with practice nurses (see high blood pressure consultation type (21KB)). There has been a steady decrease in the number of consultations with general practitioners and a slight increase in practice nurse consultations since 2003/04.

Note: Due to slightly updated rules determining what records describe a face-to-face contact and what records should be considered as administration, which were applied retrospectively, figures are not strictly comparable to those provided prior to 30 March 2010. (See Notes of revision 2010 for further information).

Individuals

In 2008/09, around 236,000 men and 275,000 women attended a member of the practice team for high blood pressure at some point during the year (see Practice Team Information (82KB)).  These figures exclude those consulting district nurses and health visitors.  

Comparing this with the data from the 2008 Scottish Health Survey in the Key points section suggests there are many people with high blood pressure who are either undiagnosed, do not attend the practice team for high blood pressure or attend less often than annually.