You are in > manchester.com  > News > 'Much more progress needed' to improve UK stroke care

Health

'Much more progress needed' to improve UK stroke care

15/02/2008

Stroke care in the UK must improve to prevent one-quarter of patients dying within one month of suffering an acute stroke, experts claim today.

Dr Helen Rodgers and Dr Richard Thomson from Newcastle Medical School write in the British Medical Journal that despite advances in care "the prognosis after acute stroke remains poor".

Their comments follow a study which found that the more independent patients are six months after a stroke the better their chances of long-term survival.

Dr Rodgers and Dr Thomson claim stroke units improve independence and survival at six months but say that "in 2006 only 62 per cent of patients in the UK were admitted to a stroke unit and only 54 per cent spent more than half of their inpatient stay on one".

They add that although anti-clotting drugs given within three hours of an acute stroke reduce death and disability, in 2006 only 30 trusts in the UK provided this service.

Other areas the medics argue need to be improved include extending early supported discharge by a specialist stroke team and undertaking more research on interventions to improve care for survivors and on how to minimise the long term effects of stroke.

Commenting on the government's stroke strategy announced earlier this year, the medics said: "Let us hope that [its] admirable aims will become the template for both commissioners and providers of care to seize the opportunity to enhance the health and wellbeing of a substantial and, to date, underserved group of patients."

In response to the BMJ report, Andrea Lane of the Stroke Association said: "For too long stroke has been seen as a Cinderella condition, despite being the UK's third biggest killer and a leading cause of adult disability. Therefore this report comes as no surprise to the Stroke Association.

"However, the significance of stroke has now been recognised by the government, with the launch of the national stroke strategy and we are now starting to see changes at ground level."

She added: We look forward to further implementations of the national stroke strategy and seeing the positive impact this has on stroke."