An integrated care board (ICB) has recommended more community screening for cholesterol and cardiovascular disease (CVD) after community pharmacies helped identify those at “highest risk of undiagnosed CVD”.
West Yorkshire ICB’s (WYICB) point-of-care testing cholesterol project used pharmacies taking part in the community pharmacy independent prescribing pathfinder (CPIPP) programme to test a “scalable model for early CVD identification” outside of primary care.
The project took place between April 2024 and March 2026, and tested whether community screening of high-risk cohorts was effective in identifying those at risk of CVD and high cholesterol earlier, and signposting to primary care for further diagnosis if required.
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WYICB recommended that community screening “should be considered as part of future neighbourhood health and prevention models”, especially in areas of higher deprivation and people with “unmet cardiovascular need”.
And there should be “clear referral pathways” from screening into primary care for community pharmacy prescribing, it said.
CPIPP pharmacies took part in screening alongside primary care network outreach teams and a voluntary, community social enterprise provider.
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The project targeted those “less likely to engage with traditional GP-led prevention pathways”, with West Yorkshire home to an estimated 240,000 people living with a risk of undiagnosed CVD.
WYICB’s evaluation of the project found that of the 1,176 people screened, 68% were from ethnic minority groups and 40% were from the most deprived areas.
Some 92% of participants found testing “more convenient” than attending a GP surgery and 58% had never had their cholesterol tested before.
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Over a third were signposted to further diagnosis in primary care, 44% had high cholesterol identified and 71% had raised blood pressure.
The report noted that the 1,176 people screened represented a “small fraction of the target population” and that the findings should be seen as “indicative rather than definitive”.
It added that only using CPIPP sites to find the undiagnosed CVD population “would be inadequate” to deliver CVD prevention screening in the community.
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But it found a “substantial proportion of participants tested to have potentially undetected CVD risk” and said the project aligned with the NHS 10-year plan to focus on digital and prevention.
It also found that the testing was “highly cost-effective” at £947.12 per quality-adjusted life year, which is “significantly below accepted NHS cost-effectiveness thresholds”.
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WYICB recommended that future projects should prioritise the highest-risk cohorts, including Black and South Asian populations, people with severe mental illness, learning disability populations and working-age adults at elevated CVD risk.
It added that as ICBs move into their roles as strategic commissioners, this evaluation should be “cascaded amongst those with responsibility for designing and delivering prevention activities, such as neighbourhood health leads, local authorities and integrator roles”.
The project was funded by NHS England and procured tests from diagnostic testing platform PocDoc to deliver the screening, with pharmacies funded through the CPIPP programme.
“Hugely encouraging”
PocDoc chief executive Steve Roest said the project “demonstrates the value” of community screening and WYICB’s recommendations are a “hugely encouraging step forward”.
“We have an opportunity to build on this momentum and make preventative cardiovascular testing more accessible to communities across the country,” he added.
It comes as the British Heart Foundation announced that a new initiative offering cholesterol-lowering injections at community pharmacies is now underway in East London.
