Our Long Term Conditions Digital Programme team is delighted with the success of their remote health monitoring project with 10,000 patients in Lothian using the service to manage their blood pressure at home. This is now one of the largest such deployments in the world.

The Scale Up BP programme supports diagnosis and self-care of hypertension, significantly improves BP control, and reduces the requirement for patients to attend health centres to have their blood pressure checked. The Scale-Up programme was created as a collaboration between NHS Lothian and The University of Edinburgh. The digital platform is a web application which allows patients to text their home-monitored blood pressure to their GP practice for monitoring and advice, reinforcing a mutually agreed healthcare plan between the patient and their healthcare provider. People are offered a blood pressure monitor to use at home and are given advice on lifestyle and how to manage their hypertension health condition.

Lothian Scale Up BP programme is in line with the Scottish Government’s Remote Health Monitoring initiative:

 At least an additional 20,000 citizens benefitting from Remote Health Monitoring of hypertension, and 50% of GP practices are engaged with all Health Boards utilising remote monitoring for Blood Pressure Monitoring.

Digital Health & Care Scotland, Digital Citizen Delivery Plan 2021/2022.

The Long Term Conditions team manages the programme on behalf of all four Lothian health and social care partnerships. As part of this, Digital Project Support Officer are in place to support clinicians for maintenance and development and manage a clinician helpline service.

You can read the results of an implementation study carried out by the University of Edinburgh on PLOS Medicine website.

Find out more about the Long Term Conditions programme