Stroke charity welcomes honest appraisal of Scottish stroke services being held back by wider hospital systems failures

John Watson, Associate Director for the Stroke Association in Scotland said:

“Stroke is one of the biggest killers in Scotland, and the leading cause of adult disability, but these figures show Scotland’s health boards are still struggling to provide pre-Covid levels of stroke care with catastrophic impact on stroke survivors and their families.

“Indeed, health boards are continuing to fall well short of the standards for stroke care that have been put in place to improve patient outcomes.

“We welcome this honest appraisal that stroke services are being held back by wider hospital systems failures, as a point that everyone working in stroke can learn from as we strive to provide stroke care that will avoid people in Scotland dying and suffering life-changing disability.

“We work closely with health boards and recognise the tremendous efforts of stroke teams on the ground, but they need more people, more innovation and more support to tackle the alarming number of people in Scotland affected by stroke.

“We want the health board leaders made accountable for stroke in last year’s Stroke Improvement Plan to see investment in the round. It will reduce ongoing support needs and, in turn, the pressure on the overstretched health and social care system.”

Whole hospital systems failures are repeatedly indicated in the report:

•Page 12: “The standards that are more disrupted by poor, whole hospital, performance, and flow (swallow screen within 4 hours and stroke unit admission on the day or day after admission) remain challenging, with big fluctuations in, and generally poor, performance.”

•Page 7: “Performance against the swallow screen standard (100% within 4 hours) remains challenging. There are fluctuations in performance across the country, but no NHS board does well.” (The Scotland average for swallow screen is 67% against a standard of 100%)

•Page 7: “Admission to a stroke unit within one day increased from 62% in 2022 to 66% in 2023 but remains below the 82% achieved in 2019.”

•Page 11: “These data suggest that to improve outcomes for stroke patients in Scotland, each NHS board should review their stroke pathway to ensure optimal early stroke unit admission and ongoing stroke specific care."