Lipid Monitoring

The benefits of this project

Benefits for Your Patients

• Time saved from reduced need for blood tests.

Benefits for Your Practice

• Fewer blood test appointments needed.
• Clinician time saved from reduced laboratory results.
• Financial savings – one non-fasting lipid test costs £1.34 (Sussex, 2024).

Benefits for The Planet

• Reduced emissions from patient travel for tests – 1.06kgCO2e per return patient journey to the practice.
• Reduced waste from testing.

Opportunity for improvement

• The number of non-fasting lipid tests carried out in General Practice is increasing year on year and many patients take statins to improve their cholesterol.  In 2018, 11.2% of the UK population were on statins.  Whilst statins can be very effective, once they have been prescribed for primary prevention, annual lipid testing is often not needed.
• There are costs involved when having lipid tests which affect the patient (e.g., time, lost earnings), the staff (e.g., appointments, admin) and the environment (e.g., transport, plastic, chemicals).   
• NICE guidelines state that prior to starting on a statin, a lipid blood test should be done with lifestyle changes encouraged before starting medication. Offer the person the opportunity to have their CVD risk assessed again after they have tried to change their lifestyle. Statins can be prescribed if lifestyle change alone is ineffective or inappropriate (for example, in people thought to be at higher risk of CVD based on comorbidities, risk scores, or clinical judgement).
• If a statin is started for primary prevention, then aim for >40% reduction in non-HDL cholesterol. Once this has been achieved there is no need for repeated lipid tests (however, they can be considered if you will use them to inform discussions on the primary prevention of CVD).
• This project suggests a method for putting this recommendation into practice (see disclaimers). 
• NB. Annual lipid tests are recommended for secondary prevention.  

How to carry out this project

How to scale this project up or down

Share your project with your PCN, Federation, ICB (England) or Cluster, Health Board (Scotland or Wales) or GP federation, Health Trust (Northern Ireland), so the learning can be shared and the project easily implemented by other practices too. 

Have you completed this QIP?

Tell us a little about your project and enter your data in order to generate a certificate showing the probable benefits. This project may help with CQC evidence submission (see disclaimers).