Last week I was asked if I would take part in a rather unusual activity in the St David's shopping centre - an attempt by a team of health care professionals on the Guinness world record for the most number of blood pressure readings taken in a period of eight hours (2075). My role was to be part of a small group of monitors verifying that the procedures were being followed properly to their conclusion. With the support team welcoming the public and signing them up, there were fourteen trained people and their assistants using digital sphygmomanometers (a big word for the thingy with a cuff that wraps around your arm to take a blood pressure reading), plus a doctor on hand to meet with people who had enquiries or had been referred to him because of their abmormal BP readings.
It meant getting up early and being in town by 8.30am, which I didn't manage because of a lack of buses combined with horrendous congestion on Castle Street, which is still part blocked by road works that seem to be taking an eternity. I arrived at nine, and others were trickling in and setting up ready to start. They weren't waiting for me, but for Rhodri Morgan former Welsh Assemby leader, who was due to make a little speech and start the day, for the benefit of the media. BBC Cymru was there, and did some interviews and filming. You can see the report here (in Welsh only), with glimpses of me in the background, signing off logged entries, and wandering about. Not very exciting though.
Once the footfall of shoppers picked up, the numbers started to come in thick and fast, people of all ages and race. I was amazed, since there didn't seem to be a huge amount of publicity beforehand. The poor doctor worked very hard and must have advised a hundred people who were referred to him in the allotted time. He remarked how surprised he'd been to see a significant number of under 20s with high blood pressure. It's something you expect in older people, and is sometimes found to be the case with Africans and Asians here in the UK. I wonder what our usual diet and lifestyle is doing for them?
I'm glad I took part. It was an excellent exercise in promoting public health concerns, and one which touches me personally since I was confronted with my own un-noticed rise in blood pressure, some four years ago. Oh, yes, I forgot to say, we set a new world record too, 2331 readings in 8 hours. And my wrist sure was aching, having signed off at least half of those logged in.
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