Published 23 April 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1655
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1655

News

A quarter of stroke patients are still not treated in a stroke unit

Zosia Kmietowicz

1 London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A quarter of patients in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland who have a stroke still spend no time in a dedicated stroke unit, the most effective treatment for a stroke, an audit has shown.

Although 74% of patients now spend some of their time in hospital in a stroke unit, and 68% spend more than half their time in a stroke unit—an improvement on the 2006 figures of 62% and 54%, respectively—26% (2967 of 11 369 patients included in the audit) receive no care in a stroke unit, says the National Sentinel Audit for Stroke 2008. These patients risk being left with unnecessary disability or may die needlessly because of failure to organise care effectively, the report says.

The audit, which was carried out on behalf of the Intercollegiate Stroke Group by the Royal College of Physicians, found improvement in every single standard that was measured in 2006, the last . . . [Full text of this article]


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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Irrational optimism: why is RCP stroke audit report’s 15% thrombolysis rate statistic 50% higher than the figure stated in the August 2008 Phase 1 organisational report?
Nigel Dudley
bmj.com, 27 Apr 2009 [Full text]
More irrational optimism: 60.5% thrombolysis rate assumption in economic model driving NHS London stroke services redesign
Nigel Dudley
bmj.com, 29 Apr 2009 [Full text]
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