The Greater Reading Nepalese Community Association is supporting a group of GP practices across Reading to help raise awareness of ‘Know Your Numbers Week’ by hosting a Pressure Station at its football tournament to encourage visitors to get a blood pressure check and the support they need to look after their health.

Working closely with the New Reading Primary Care Network (PCN), a cluster of neighbouring GP practices in South Reading, the event attracted huge numbers of wannabe ‘Erling Haaland’s’ who were in it to win it, providing a fun, healthy afternoon for everyone.

The highly popular event doubled up as an opportunity for Dr Ganesh Sharma and Dr Nadeem Ahmed, along with their surgery staff and local volunteers, to encourage people to think about their own health. In addition, 90 mini health checks were carried over the course of the tournament, measuring BMI, blood glucose and blood pressure.

Getting a blood pressure check is the first step to preventing heart attacks and strokes and the opportunity for a health check was well received by attendees.

As well as promoting health and preventive healthcare advice, the event also meant the team were able to identify new cases of possible hypertension and diabetes.

The offer of blood pressure testing coincides with this year’s ‘Know Your Numbers Week’ blood pressure awareness week running until Monday 10 September. And for those with concerns about their cardiovascular health, it offered the chance to ask healthcare professionals about simple lifestyle changes to help reduce their risk and improve overall health and wellbeing.

Staff were also on hand to offer advice and answer questions about the upcoming flu and COVID-19 winter vaccination programme which is due to roll out to eligible people in the next couple of weeks. The event also provided an opportunity to raise awareness of health research being delivered by the New Reading PCN.

Dr Sharma said “It’s great when we can bring preventative health advice and testing into the community. Events like this are a real opportunity for people to check the state of their health and for us as clinicians to offer the advice that may help prevent something more serious developing further down the line.”

Further information:

• Further information on COVID-19 and flu vaccination can be found here: Getting a COVID-19 vaccine - NHS (www.nhs.uk) and Flu vaccine - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
• Know Your Numbers week: find out more here: Blood Pressure UK
• Further information on NHS Health Checks can be found here: NHS Health Check - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
• Eligibility for COVID-19 and Flu winter vaccination, have been aligned and will allow for co-administration where possible:
• residents in a care home for older adults
• all adults aged 65 years and over
• persons aged 6 months to 64 years in a clinical risk group, as laid out in the Immunisation Green Book
• frontline health and social care workers
• persons aged 12 to 64 years who are household contacts (as defined in the Green Book) of people with immunosuppression
• persons aged 16 to 64 years who are carers (as defined in the Green Book) and staff working in care homes for older adults

Children age 2 and 3, those of a school age and anyone who is pregnant are eligible for a free flu vaccine.