Free Blood Pressure Check in Gillingham

If you're 40 or over and haven't been diagnosed with high blood pressure, you can have a free NHS blood pressure check at a pharmacy. We offer it at our Gillingham pharmacy on Canterbury Street, and you don't need an appointment or a GP referral.

If you already have high blood pressure, your GP practice will usually monitor it. You're still welcome to ask us about your readings, your medicines or your home blood pressure monitor.

Your reading has two numbers. The first (systolic) is the pressure when your heart beats; the second (diastolic) is the pressure between beats. A reading of 140/90 or higher taken in a pharmacy or surgery is considered high. For home or 24-hour monitoring the threshold is 135/85, because blood pressure is usually lower when you're relaxed.

A single high reading doesn't mean you have hypertension. Stress, caffeine and even the walk to the pharmacy can push it up, which is why a high reading is usually followed by 24-hour monitoring before anyone makes a diagnosis. Whatever your numbers, we explain what they mean and what, if anything, to do next.

If your reading in the pharmacy is 140/90 or higher but below 180/120, we can offer 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. You wear a cuff on your upper arm connected to a small monitor, and it takes readings automatically through the day and night while you work, rest and sleep.

This is the test NICE recommends to confirm a diagnosis of high blood pressure, because it shows your blood pressure across a normal day rather than at one moment. It also picks up white-coat hypertension, where nerves in a clinical setting push your reading up, so you avoid treatment you don't need. We go through the results with you and pass them to your GP if you need follow-up.

High blood pressure rarely causes symptoms, so the only way to know is to measure it. Around one in three adults in England has high blood pressure, and about 3 in 10 of them don't know they have it.

Left untreated, it raises your risk of heart attack, stroke, kidney disease and vascular dementia. Finding it early gives you time to bring it down with lifestyle changes and, where needed, treatment from your GP.

A reading of 180/120 or higher is very high. You should be seen by a doctor the same day, and we'll tell you where to go.

Call 999 if a very high reading comes with chest pain, breathlessness, a sudden severe headache, new confusion, or signs of a stroke such as a drooping face, weakness or numbness on one side, slurred speech or sudden loss of sight. For frequent headaches, blurred vision or chest pain that comes and goes, contact your GP or call NHS 111.