PocDoc partners with Taurus Healthcare to bring heart and diabetes checks to rural Herefordshire

PocDoc, the UK's leading digital diagnostics company, has partnered with Taurus Healthcare, the GP federation owned by every GP practice in Herefordshire, to take cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes screening out of the surgery and into the communities where people live.

Taurus Healthcare's teams will use PocDoc's Healthy Heart Check and HbA1c diabetes test to screen residents close to home, with results on a smartphone in under ten minutes and returned straight to the patient's GP record. The test happens in the community. The follow-up stays with the patient's own practice.

Why Herefordshire

Herefordshire is one of the most rural counties in England. More than one in two residents (53%) live in areas classed as rural¹, and almost all of the county's land is classed as posing significant geographical barriers to services. For many people, a routine check means a long journey, and that's often where prevention stalls.

The county is older than most, too. More than one in four residents (27%) is 65 or over, against 19% across England and Wales¹. And around one in every thirteen adults is living with diagnosed diabetes: 12,208 people on GP registers in 2023/24, a prevalence of 7.5%².

The biggest drivers of heart attacks and strokes rarely announce themselves. Raised cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes can sit silently for years, yet they can often be found long before symptoms appear. Early detection could prevent up to 80% of CVD cases³. The challenge in a county like Herefordshire is reaching people early enough to make that count.

How the tests work

The Healthy Heart Check delivers a full cholesterol profile, BMI, NHS Heart Age and a ten-year cardiovascular risk score (QRISK3) from a single finger-prick, straight to a smartphone in under ten minutes. Results can flow into the patient's NHS record, with a clear pathway to follow-up for anyone at risk. No lab. No GP wait.

PocDoc's HbA1c test, launched last year, identifies people at risk of, or living with, type 2 diabetes. Health Minister Stephen Kinnock described it as "a potential game-changer" for preventative care.

For a GP federation, that connection to the record is the point. Every result lands where the patient's own clinicians can see it and act on it, and every digital health check can save 20 minutes of GP time⁴.

A national milestone

The partnership comes as the Healthy Heart Check passes a milestone of its own. People in every UK postcode area have now taken a test, less than three years after it launched.

Closer to home, by design

The partnership puts the NHS 10 Year Health Plan into practice in a single appointment. Care moves from hospital to community, from sickness to prevention and from analogue to digital, without cutting the patient off from their GP.

What they said

Gillian Pearson, Associate Director of Clinical Services & Performance at Taurus Healthcare, said: "General practice in Herefordshire covers a large and dispersed rural population, and we know that distance and transport can prevent people from acting on their health until a problem becomes more serious."

"By taking screening directly into communities, we can reach people who might not otherwise come forward, identify cardiovascular and diabetes risk earlier and connect those who need it with the right care sooner. This is exactly the kind of preventative, closer to home healthcare our federation exists to support."

Steve Roest, CEO and Co-Founder at PocDoc, said: "Where someone lives should not determine how easily they can access preventative healthcare. In rural communities like those across Herefordshire, distance and transport can create very real barriers to something as simple as getting a health check.

"This partnership shows how we can start to change that. By taking diagnostics beyond traditional healthcare settings, delivering results in minutes and connecting those results back into the patient's existing care pathway, we can bring prevention closer to where people live while ensuring their GP remains connected to what happens next.

"That is important because the test itself is only the beginning. Identifying risk earlier matters most when people can understand their results and access the right support to act on them."

Sources:

Herefordshire Council: Population

Herefordshire Council: Population around the county

HTWorld: UK launches smartphone test for type 2 diabetes in world-first

NHS Accelerator: PocDoc launches world’s first smartphone test for type 2 diabetes