PocDoc heads to the Scottish Pharmacy Trade & Retail Show 2026

PocDoc is coming to Scotland. On 15 and 16 September 2026, we'll be at the Scottish Pharmacy Trade & Retail Show at the Inchyra Grange Hotel in Falkirk, ready to show community pharmacists how a ten-minute heart check at their counter could help prevent the country's single biggest killer. Come and meet us there.

The Scottish Pharmacy Trade & Retail Show is Scotland's dedicated community pharmacy event, bringing together pharmacy owners, pharmacists, managers and teams from across the country for two days of learning, supplier discovery and networking. This year's programme features speaker sessions from some of the profession's leading voices, including Alison Strath, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, and Matt Barclay, CEO of Community Pharmacy Scotland, alongside practical training, regulatory panels and dozens of exhibitors. Entry is free for pharmacy professionals.

We'll be there for one reason: Scotland's next big step in heart health starts at the pharmacy counter.

Why this matters for Scotland

Cardiovascular disease is Scotland's single biggest killer, and the scale of the challenge is immense. Around 685,000 people in Scotland live with the burden of cardiovascular disease¹, and heart diseases cause around one in six deaths in Scotland, roughly 11,000 deaths every year, or one death every 50 minutes². NHS annual expenditure on CVD in Scotland is estimated at £950 million².

But here is the number that should give every pharmacy team in the country a reason to act: around 75% of Scotland's cardiovascular burden is associated with modifiable risk factors, which are often preventable². These are the risks, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, that can be found and acted on before they become a heart attack or a stroke. As many as 640,000 adults in Scotland with high blood pressure are undiagnosed², walking around with a serious, treatable risk they know nothing about.

The tools to change this already exist and they work. Every 1mmol/L fall in LDL cholesterol from statin treatment reduces the yearly risk of heart attack and stroke by 25%³, and every 10mmHg drop in blood pressure reduces the risk of strokes and heart attacks by 20%³. The challenge has never been treatment. It has been finding the people who need it, before they become a statistic.

Pharmacies are perfectly placed to close the gap

Scotland's CVD Prevention pathway has a clear goal: find people living with modifiable risk factors before they get sick, and shift care closer to home. Community pharmacies are ideally positioned to make that happen. They are trusted, accessible, and already seeing the people who never book a GP appointment.

That is exactly where PocDoc comes in. PocDoc's Healthy Heart Check gives a pharmacy everything it needs to deliver cardiovascular screening today, from a single fingerprick, in under ten minutes. Each check provides a full cholesterol profile, BMI, NHS Heart Age and a ten-year cardiovascular risk score, delivered to the patient's own smartphone, with a clear pathway to follow-up for anyone found to be at risk. No lab. No GP wait. Ten minutes at the counter, and one less potential heart attack.

Real patients, real results

This is not theoretical. PocDoc is already trusted by more than 35 pharmacies across the Scottish Borders and East Lothian, and the results from that work speak for themselves. From one programme:

56% of people tested had never had a cholesterol check before
38% were identified as high-risk
96% preferred it to seeing their GP
The programme delivered an estimated 625% return on investment

Those numbers tell the story of a service reaching exactly the right people, the ones traditional pathways miss, and doing it in a way patients actually prefer.

Come and meet us

If you run or work in a Scottish pharmacy and you want to see how cardiovascular screening could work at your counter, come and find the PocDoc team at the Scottish Pharmacy Trade & Retail Show on 15 and 16 September at the Inchyra Grange Hotel, Falkirk. We'll show you how it works, answer your questions, and talk through how PocDoc could help your pharmacy play its part in tackling Scotland's biggest killer.

Ten minutes in your pharmacy. One less heart attack. That's the opportunity, and it starts at your counter.