Halton Borough Council’s Health Improvement Team’s FREE ‘Health Fair’ in Widnes on Saturday hailed as a success with 151 blood pressure checks and 100 lung age checks completed and lots of health advice given out.

High blood pressure affects more than one in four adults in England. At least half of all heart attacks and strokes are associated with high blood pressure, and it is a major risk factor for chronic kidney disease, heart failure and dementia.

Halton Borough Council’s Executive Board Member for Health and Wellbeing, Cllr Marie Wright, said: “In Halton, it is estimated that around 13,000 people have undiagnosed high blood pressure. Many of these people will have no symptoms and won’t visit a GP, so our fantastic Health Improvement Team has been going out into the community offering the public free BP and lung age checks at events like this.”

On Saturday 30 June the team set up a stall in Widnes town centre to offer local residents free blood pressure and lung age checks and advice about how to reduce the risk of heart and lung disease, maintain a healthy blood pressure, quitting smoking and keeping active. On the day, more than 30 people who visited the team had raised blood pressure.

Normal blood pressure should be between 90/60 and 140/90. A high reading on one day does not necessarily mean you have high blood pressure, lots of factors can influence this, but with any high reading it is important to get checked again and keep an eye on the results.

The team advised anyone with a higher than normal result to have a follow up check with their GP or at a local pharmacy, while one person whose result was alarmingly high was advised to visit the Widnes Urgent Care Centre as soon as possible.

The Health Improvement Team will be organising more of these events in Halton – keep an eye out on the HIT website and our Facebook and Twitter pages for more information.

www.haltonhealthimprovement.co.uk