Hospital stays for patients who have had a stroke are set to be reduced by up to eight days when a new community service is launched in March 2019.
Several NHS trusts submitted bids to provide the service, which has been designed and funded by NHS Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to bring together a wide range of health and care workers to help people recover fully from a stroke after hospital treatment.
The integrated community stroke rehabilitation service (ICSRS) will mean further care can be provided closer to home.
Doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and social care staff will work together to meet patients’ physical, psychological and social needs.
Dr Sarah Oliver, the CCG’s clinical lead for stroke care, and GP with Cumberland House Surgery, Macclesfield explained: “The new service will provide a comprehensive package of community-based care that will enable patients to return home from hospital between six and eight days earlier.
“This is good news for patients, who have told us they don’t want to be in hospital unless it’s absolutely necessary.
“It will also free up vital beds for other patients while cutting costs arising from prolonged hospital stays.”
Dr Oliver added: “The service has been shaped by numerous listening events we held with stroke survivors and carers.
“These conversations helped us find out what worked well for them, what didn’t and what they felt was important, not just immediately after the stroke but in terms of getting on with life afterwards.
“Survivors want to return home, get back to work and reconnect socially with their families and local communities wherever possible.
“Currently the services that facilitate this are lacking and there are gaps in the system, with patients ready to return home sometimes having to wait for community support.”
She concluded: “The new service will join up the gaps in the current system, improving patients’ quality of life by providing better access to support services.”
The community rehabilitation service will build on hospital-based care for people in the hyper acute and acute stages of stroke.
National stroke audit data published by the Royal College of Physicians in March last year revealed that Eastern Cheshire residents who had a stroke were getting the best hospital care in England.
Best practice examples included a clot-busting therapy (thrombolysis) carried out in the critical first four hours after stroke.
At the same time, urgent brain scanning 24/7 was found to be saving more lives and reducing long-term disabilities.
The service has received an ‘A’ rating, meaning a world-class service, from the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme.
Outstanding outcomes for patients receiving hospital stroke care are said to be the result of the CCG’s decision to commission services from regional centres of excellence.
With the exception of people from Congleton and Holmes Chapel (who are taken to Royal Stoke Hospital) Eastern Cheshire patients who have a stroke are taken by ambulance to Stepping Hill Hospital for hyper acute and acute care.
Patients who would ordinarily be taken to Stepping Hill are instead taken to Salford Royal Hospital if they suffer a stroke between 11pm and 7am. They are then transferred to Stepping Hill following initial treatment.
