Thank you for contacting me about support for stroke survivors.
I know that good progress has been made in the treatment of strokes in recent years, with mortality rates for people who have suffered with strokes decreasing.
I am aware that action continues to be taken to ensure that further progress in relation to this is made. I think we can all look to the great successes made in London in recent years, where the London Hyper Acute Stroke Unit model has been shown to save nearly 100 more lives per year than its previous model, at a considerably smaller cost to the NHS.
Work is continuing across the country to organise acute stroke care to ensure that all stroke patients, regardless of where they live or when they have their stroke, have access to high quality specialist care.
The Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Outcomes Strategy was published in 2013 and includes many stroke specific ambitions. As part of this, a CVD expert forum, hosted by NHS England, was established to coordinate delivery of the work through the strategy. NHS England has also been working with the Strategic Clinical Networks, clinical commissioning groups, voluntary agencies and individual providers to support better commissioning and provision of stroke care.
The NHS Long Term Plan, backed by increased NHS spending of £33.9 billion per year by the end of five years, launched in January 2018, aims to prevent 150,000 heart attacks, strokes and dementia cases. This is through an increased focus on prevention through improved wellbeing, as well as better integrated community care.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me about this important issue.
Kind Regards,
Sally-Ann Hart MP