Building a resilient system to improve blood pressure control in the UK: lessons from our Canadian cousins

Abstract The Stanley Peart Essay Competition is an annual event run by the British and Irish Hypertension Society toencourage Early Career Researchers to continue the ethos of Sir Stanley Peart. Sir Stanley Peart was a clinician andclinical researcher who made a major contribution to our understanding of blood pressure regulation. He was the fi rstto demonstrate the release of noradrenaline in response to sympathetic nerve stimulation. He was also the fi rst topurify, and determine the structure of, angiotensin and he later isolated the enzyme, renin, and carried out manyimportant investigations of the factors controlling its release in the body. This year, the essay topic was “Why doesCanada outperform all other countries in blood pressure control, and how would you implement a Canadian approachinto the UK system?”. In his prize-winning essay, Steven Mitchell argues that Canada's rise and subsequent fall inblood pressure control was driven not by new drugs but by the infrastructure built to implement guidelines, and itslater dismantling. He proposes that the UK already has the necessary components to translate the lessons fromCanada into a resilient, UK-specifi c model for blood pressure control.