The NHS is expanding cardiovascular prevention services in England with a new pharmacy-based cholesterol screening programme that will allow eligible patients to receive a quick test on the high street, part of a wider effort to reduce heart disease and stroke deaths over the next decade.
What the new service offers
Under the rollout, around 100 NHS pharmacies will begin offering cholesterol check-ups this autumn to people aged 40 to 84 who are not pregnant and have not had a blood test in the past year. The test uses a pin-prick sample and gives a result in just seven minutes. Patients will also be offered a blood pressure check during a clinical consultation with a pharmacist prescriber, who can provide lifestyle advice and decide whether treatment is needed.
The NHS says the pilot will run until spring 2027. It follows a smaller programme in north London, run by Barts Health NHS Trust with UCLPartners and HEART UK, which tested 2,493 patients at 61 community pharmacies between January 2025 and March 2026. In that pilot, 19% were found to be suitable for pharmacological intervention and 88 people started on statins.
Why the NHS is widening access
According to NHS England, the new service is designed to spot cardiovascular risk earlier and help prevent heart attacks and strokes before they happen. Chief pharmaceutical officer for England David Webb said local pharmacies can act as a first line of defence against serious illness, while Health Minister Alison McGovern described the scheme as the kind of innovation the health service wants to scale across the system. NHS England’s National Specialty Advisor for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, Dr Rani Khatib, said the initiative is intended to help people “know their numbers” and manage common risk factors such as high cholesterol and blood pressure sooner.
Dr Sotiris Antoniou, clinical lead for the initiative at Barts Health NHS Trust, said the national programme builds on a quality-assured model for point-of-care testing in community pharmacy, while UCLPartners said the north London evidence showed one in five people tested were at high risk of heart attack or stroke over the next 10 years.
Part of a broader NHS prevention push
The pharmacy checks form part of the NHS’s wider prevention agenda and the 10 Year Health Plan, with officials saying the approach could help reduce health inequalities in communities with a greater burden of cardiovascular disease. The service is also meant to make care more accessible by moving some checks out of GP surgeries and into local pharmacies.
With the programme set to expand across England in the coming months, NHS leaders are positioning it as a practical way to catch risk earlier, start treatment sooner where needed, and ease pressure on other parts of the health service.
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