PocDoc's heart checks come to Thames Valley GP surgeries, and BBC South Today was there to see it

For the first time, GP surgeries across the Thames Valley are offering home finger-prick testing to identify the risk factors for heart attack and stroke, using PocDoc's Healthy Heart Check. BBC South Today visited one of the surgeries to see the service in action, and met a patient whose routine appointment turned into a potentially life-changing discovery.

A routine appointment, a life-changing result

The strength of the approach was captured perfectly in the BBC South Today report. One patient, who had only come into his surgery in Brill for a routine asthma check-up, was offered a heart check while he was there. In a matter of minutes, using a simple finger-prick test and following the step-by-step prompts on a smartphone, he had a full picture of his cardiovascular health, and his results were sent straight to his GP.

For this 63-year-old patient, the results were a wake-up call. His Heart Age came back significantly older than his actual age, a clear, easy-to-understand signal that he was carrying more cardiovascular risk than he realised. He described the test as straightforward and user-friendly, and left determined to make changes to his lifestyle.

Crucially, the story didn't end with the result. Because his data reached his GP immediately, he was quickly booked in for a follow-up appointment to discuss next steps. As his clinician explained in the report, identifying a patient whose Heart Age exceeds their actual age creates the opportunity to address modifiable risk factors and intervene early, whether through lifestyle changes, medication, or a combination tailored to the patient, reducing their overall risk before serious problems develop.

Why this model works

The clinicians featured in the report were clear about the problem this service is built to solve. Uptake of traditional NHS screening isn't as high as anyone would like, and a great deal of cardiovascular disease in the community simply isn't being picked up. The solution is to go to the patients who are most likely to be at risk, rather than waiting for them to come forward.

That is exactly what PocDoc's Healthy Heart Check enables. Each check delivers a full cholesterol profile, BMI, NHS Heart Age and a ten-year cardiovascular risk score from a single finger-prick, in under ten minutes, on the patient's own smartphone. Results are returned to the practice through GP Connect, ensuring the GP record remains the single source of truth, so a check offered opportunistically during an unrelated appointment can flow seamlessly into a patient's ongoing care.

As the report also noted, the benefits extend beyond the individual. Heart attacks and strokes are devastating for patients and their families, and preventing them also eases pressure on NHS budgets. Early detection is better for everyone.

Prevention, brought to the patient

The Unity Health partnership is a first-of-its-kind agreement for PocDoc, giving a GP practice unlimited use of the Healthy Heart Check across all five surgeries under a single annual arrangement. That structure means the decision to test a patient is a clinical one, based on need, rather than a financial one based on the cost of an individual test. It's what allowed a patient who came in for asthma to walk out having also had his heart checked.

The partnership directly supports the Government's 10 Year Health Plan and reflects the NHS's three key shifts in action: from hospital to community, from sickness to prevention, and from analogue to digital. And as the BBC South Today report showed, when cardiovascular screening is made this easy and this accessible, it finds exactly the people who need it, often before they have any idea they're at risk.

For the patient in Brill, it meant discovering his heart was older than his years, and getting the chance to do something about it. That is precisely what PocDoc was built to do.

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