Stroke ads fail to make impact

A PUBLIC health campaign has done nothing to improve how quickly people get help for mini strokes, a study has found.

The FAST campaign – standing for Face, Arms, Speech and Time – was designed to raise awareness of symptoms and encourage prompt treatment. Patients who have suffered a minor stroke are at greater risk of a major stroke within the next 24 hours.

Launched by Public Health England, the ads appeared on television from 2009. Researchers from John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford looked at more than 2,000 patients who had had a stroke since then. They found 180 patients had a further attack within 90 days, 93 of whom had sought no medical help initially – about the same proportion as those before the targeted adverts.