NHS to offer free high-street cholesterol tests in England

Free cholesterol tests will be offered at high-street pharmacies across England under a new NHS programme designed to identify people at risk of heart attacks and strokes before they become seriously ill.

Around 100 NHS pharmacies will begin offering the checks this autumn, with eligible patients able to have their cholesterol measured using a quick finger-prick blood test. The test takes around seven minutes to analyse a person’s cholesterol profile, allowing results and potential risks to be discussed during the same pharmacy consultation.

People aged between 40 and 84 will be eligible for the service provided they are not pregnant and have not had a blood test within the previous year. Eligible patients will also be offered a blood pressure check as part of their consultation with a pharmacist prescriber and will receive a copy of their cholesterol results by email.

Where results indicate a potential problem, pharmacist prescribers will be able to provide lifestyle advice and assess whether treatment may be required. The aim is to identify cardiovascular risk earlier, particularly because high cholesterol usually causes no symptoms and can only be identified through testing.

The national programme follows a smaller pilot carried out across 61 community pharmacies in North London by Barts Health NHS Trust in collaboration with UCLPartners and HEART UK. Between January 2025 and March 2026, 2,493 people received cholesterol checks through the scheme.

Results from the pilot showed that 19% of those tested were considered suitable for pharmacological intervention, while 88 people went on to start taking statins. UCLPartners said its evidence also showed that around one in five people tested were found to be at high risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke within the following ten years.

High cholesterol can contribute to fatty deposits building up inside the arteries, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes. Because people can live with high cholesterol without experiencing obvious symptoms, NHS guidance recommends testing as the only way to know whether cholesterol levels are raised.

David Webb, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England, said community pharmacies could provide an important first line of defence against serious illness by making preventative healthcare easier to access. The NHS hopes that bringing cholesterol testing onto local high streets will allow risks to be identified sooner and give people an opportunity to make changes or begin treatment before they experience a major cardiovascular event.

The programme also forms part of a wider NHS strategy to move more healthcare away from hospitals and traditional GP settings and closer to where people live. Community pharmacies have increasingly taken on services previously delivered through GP practices, with the government viewing them as an important part of efforts to improve access while reducing pressure elsewhere in the NHS.

Health Minister Alison McGovern said making cholesterol testing available through local pharmacies would make it easier for people to identify potential health problems earlier. NHS cardiovascular specialists have also urged people to become more aware of their cholesterol and blood pressure levels, both of which are significant risk factors for heart attacks and strokes.

The NHS pilot will run from this autumn until spring 2027. Initially, the free seven-minute tests will only be available through around 100 participating pharmacies rather than every pharmacy in England, with the programme intended to test how the model can work on a larger scale.

The initiative forms part of the NHS ambition to reduce deaths from heart disease and stroke by a quarter over the next decade. If the results seen during the North London pilot can be replicated more widely, high-street testing could help identify thousands of people who are currently living with cardiovascular risk without knowing it.

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