Despite many initiatives and high profile public awareness campaigns, more than half of NHS patients with symptoms of stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) still fail to get fast access to life-saving, stroke prevention surgery.
A lack of public and professional awareness about the need for quick treatment, combined with badly designed hospital services, is resulting in hundreds of preventable strokes. Surgeons say that unless awareness is increased to a level where these patients are routinely treated as emergencies, it will not be possible to meet Government stroke care standards. Figures from the third report of the Carotid Endartectomy Audit, commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) and carried out by the Royal College of Physicians and the Vascular Society show some improvement in the overall time in which patients are getting surgery of the neck arteries in order to prevent stroke. The study also reveals variation across the UK, with significant delays between patients experiencing symptoms, referral to stroke specialists and on to surgery. While some patients who need surgery are accessing it within two days, others are waiting almost two months. There is also concern that some hospitals are failing to provide any data, meaning care quality is impossible to determine. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) sets a timeframe of two weeks from symptoms to surgery, while the Government’s National Stroke Strategy (NSS) is 48 hours. Currently 40% of NHS patients are operated on within the NICE timeframe, up from 33% last year. The report describes the NSS timeframe as “a major challenge” with only 2% of NHS patients currently meeting these standards.
